The announcement came during SEC media days where the tagline “It’s just means more” took on new meaning.
“Surprised by that? Absolutely surprised by that,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said after hearing for the first time Thursday that the NCAA had only allowed athletes to transfer an unlimited number of times . “I think it just adds to the madness of the transfer portal.”
This was an early reaction to the NCAA’s announcement that the Division I Council had recommended removing the restriction against players who transfer multiple times. The NCAA Board of Directors is expected to seal the recommendation on Aug. 3.
The news comes less than a year into the NCAA’s newly relaxed rules for one-time transfers.
Fun fact: the world hasn’t ended. Athletes are more like students who can transfer at will. The coaches have also adapted. For the next two years on a trial basis, programs will be able to sign unlimited amounts of players during signing periods as long as they don’t exceed the annual limit of 85 scholarship players.
All of this has been a look at the slow implementation of NCAA deregulation. Big Brother will be less involved in these matters, not more, in the future. But if coaches thought they were in trouble with the one-transfer rule, the climate became the Wild West on steroids, with an asterisk.
Because of the academic requirements involved, it will be difficult to transfer more than once as an undergraduate. Incoming transfers must be guaranteed financial aid for the five-year eligibility period.
“For one transfer, maybe two, it’s probably pretty manageable,” said one source involved in the Council process. “Going into multiple transfers, it becomes more and more difficult.”
Currently, graduate students may transfer by making the maximum number of transfers allowed without a waiver of both. The lifting of the restrictions initially made coaches’ heads spin. Yes, at least now it is possible for an athlete to play at four different schools in four different years.
“A kid can go as many times as he wants and not have to graduate? Wow,” Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher told CBS Sports. “It’s just the open recruitment of your own players [by other schools]. Anyone can recruit [them]. That’s what they’re doing with third parties anyway, with agents. Agents are coming in saying, “I can make you a better deal here.” “
The law was both expected and a surprise. Administrators who had seen the NCAA’s grip on the fan were not surprised. We are experiencing in real time the NCAA’s slow and inexorable movement toward a professional model. The latest example: CBS Sports reported on Friday The Big Ten had received a demand that the players receive a portion of the media rights revenue.
“People need to realize that yes, there could be one person who plays for four teams, four different years,” said Ohio professor and players’ rights advocate David Ridpath. “At the end of the day, that’s their right until the NCAA wants to sit down and collectively negotiate restrictions with the athlete. There’s no other way forward now.”
Next month, the NCAA Transformation Committee is expected to announce moves that would allow conferences and divisions to make some of their own rules. There is already concern that the Big Ten and SEC will monopolize money, power, influence and championships in college football, at least.
After the one-transfer rule was implemented last year, coaches lamented that free agency had begun. Players could transfer twice in their career, once as an undergraduate and once as a graduate. NIL has added to the confusion as several coaches have told CBS Sports that recruits and existing players on the roster are looking for the best NIL deals.
“To say you can now transfer without penalty is going to be a disaster …,” said attorney Tom Mars, who has worked on several high-profile waiver application cases. “Having been a staunch leader for the rights of college athletes, I never anticipated that they would come this far.”
The NCAA this week only codified the landscape that had developed around the portal and the single transfer rule. Those college students who wanted to transfer more than once only applied to the NCAA for an exemption citing extenuating circumstances. More often than not, the NCAA granted these waivers knowing, in the end, that it didn’t want to face a lawsuit.
“Normally it would be a second transfer [granted] just for that reason anyway,” Ridpath said. “It’s hard to transfer twice to meet academic requirements, whether it’s institutional, conference or NCAA. But it’s not impossible, though. It is possible that a person can [transfer as many times as he/she wanted].”
Mars created that climate four years ago when he took lawyers for Ole Miss and the NCAA to the cleaners to get a waiver for Rebels quarterback Shea Patterson to transfer to Michigan.
In 2019, Mars announced that it had stopped taking waiver request cases due to high demand for them.
“The residency year rule had to be changed because the coaches were abusing it. They’re a little bit to blame,” Mars said. “But when historians look back on this, if the NCAA had dealt with NIL when they should have, they wouldn’t have been forced into a corner…
“Maybe this foretells the end of the NCAA,” he added.
