NCAA Board of Directors mandates changes to D1 xfer rules for this year

Submitted by Arb lover on

CBS is reporting that the NCAA Board of Directors has mandated D1 changes for transfer rules during calendar year 2018. 

An ongoing Division I Transfer Working Group is expected to push forward one or two proposals for legislation by June. The question then would be the effective date -- in time for either the 2018 or 2019 football seasons.

This proposal was originated out of the Big12, and it appears there is fairly universal support thus far. Preliminary details are as follows:

Players would be eligible to transfer without having to sit out at all if their head coach left (could not follow the head coach), or if the program was hit with a postseason ban.

While the Shea Patterson's situation will likely be cleared up well before this ruling, the Ole Miss transfer requests do present a compelling argument that lines up with this proposal. If the NCAA board of directors is mandating a change, and this is the current proposal/direction being considered, it would be surprising if the NCAA elected to reject Shea and the other Ole Miss transfer requests.

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GoBLUE_SemperFi

January 30th, 2018 at 9:52 PM ^

...and there are reports going back to December that suggested that the Ole Miss players were confident (based on conversations with the NCAA) that they'd be eligible in 2018, then this is a positive sign for the likelihood that Patterson will be granted immediate eligibility.

Maybe the Ole Miss situation is the final straw that pushed this change and Patterson won't even need to request a waiver for eligibility.

Joined: 12/21/2015

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Hail Harbo

January 31st, 2018 at 1:27 AM ^

What if, and I'm not saying this pertains to Patterson, but what if the player is a beneficiary of NCAA prohibitions which brings sanctions upon his institution?  Example:  If the mother of player A received a gift from a booster of institution X, and instiution X was found guilty of violations, to include the aforementioned gift giving, should player A be allowed to transfer?

Joined: 06/18/2015

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jbrandimore

January 30th, 2018 at 8:00 PM ^

I suspect that it will provide a negative incentive for schools to fire Coaches for off the field transgressions. Think Kevin White at Indiana or Bobby Petrino everywhere. If they knew that they might lose their entire roster, would that make an AD hesitate to fire a compromised coach?

Joined: 01/06/2015

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wildbackdunesman

January 30th, 2018 at 8:18 PM ^

Knowing an entire program can blow up with easy mass transfers if there is a postseason ban, it might actually encourage programs to be more honest and afraid of postseason bans.

Hypothetically, if a college was institutionalizing the covering up of rapes, and if caught received a postseason ban, which would result in a mass transferring, why...colleges might not cover up rapes anymore.

Joined: 07/16/2008

MGoPoints: 30237

LSAClassOf2000

January 30th, 2018 at 8:32 PM ^

That part about excpetions to Bylaw 14.5.5.2 is interesting, as most of the exceptions - as I recall - revolve around educational exchange, studying abroad, transfers due to discontinued programs and a few other things. I think the other referenced bylaw repeats some of that. 

Joined: 01/07/2011

MGoPoints: 130561

stephenrjking

January 30th, 2018 at 8:47 PM ^

This is just a proposal. Nothing has been mandated. However, these proposals often pass, so it's a real probability.

And I'm generally good with this. It has long been discussed how unfair it seems that coaches can just leave seemingly on a whim, while players are stuck with their commitment to the school. This removes barriers for them when coaches change locations, and that seems fair.

I will bring up one counterpoint, though: This is really good for coaches. There is a disincentive to fire coaches who have decent rosters, and also an incentive to hold out for better offers if they are a potential flight risk. 

Joined: 03/15/2012

MGoPoints: 20143524

Whole Milk

January 31st, 2018 at 9:26 AM ^

Although I agree with you that it is unfair that coaches get to leave with very little penalty, it is a two way street with the coach-school relationship, just like the school-player relationship is designed to be a two way street (even though schools like Alabama seem to go against this with their processing).

I am not sure at the college level there should be even rights between coaches and players. If all it takes is a coach being fired for every player on the team to be immediately eligible, this essentially becomes Free Agency and becomes an advantage for the better teams who have stability at the head coaching spot. There were 20 coaches who either left jobs or were fired this season, meaning 1700 players would be up for Free Agnecy. I'm not sure that is a good thing in college football.

On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with granting immediate transfer eligibility to palyers of schools that are sanctioned (except for participating parties). Hopefully that would have a positive impact on schools regulating themselves in order to avoid a complete roster overhaul.

Joined: 09/01/2015

MGoPoints: 2257

Kevin13

January 31st, 2018 at 12:37 PM ^

Not sure everytime a coach leaves you should just open up all those players to be able to leave. They are suppose to be students first and should choose a program, because of the school.  I do like the idea if a school goes under sanctions players could leave then with no penalty.

If you are going to let players leave if a coach leaves I think it should probably be restricted to maybe just Freshman and Sophomores. Anything later then that and a kid has too much time invested in their degree and think a transfer should still result in a year sitting out.  Need to get these kids thinking of school and a degree because 98% of them will need it once they finish school. Sometimes doing the right things for kids isn't always easy, but it is needed.

Joined: 01/26/2016

MGoPoints: 16040

Arb lover

January 30th, 2018 at 9:43 PM ^

If termination of coaching contract may result in mass player turnover, new/renewed coaching contracts will attempt to take that into account. If something like this passes.

I'd guess there will be a broadened "for cause" section in most contracts making explicitly clear the coach gets screwed. That, or contracts are rewritten for significantly less money/year with an annual year end bonus of say 2-5 mil, payable by 3/31 of the following year as long as there are no open NCAA investigations targeting the school, yada, yada. Another stipulation that might be added would be that for a for cause or institution desire to remove the coach for performance, the institution would have the option of invoking a demotion; a coach would be required to serve a year as an assistant head coach on the same team, or suffer a non-compete clause for two years. If you keep them around for a year instead of firing them, based on this proposal at least, it covers your bases (again as long as the infraction wasn't bad enough that the NCAA gives sanctions).

Currently schools are fairly lazy about this process, there's no real incentive vs the reward of success to keep coaches accountable. Opening up a player ability to transfer in certain situations brings the hurt directly to the institution, which I approve of. 

Joined: 11/26/2017

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