Eligibility Extended

The NCAA granted all fall athletes an extra year of eligibility as a result of this virus thing. The story on ESPN speaks to the challenge it poses to scholarship management. I have no real opinion one way or the other on extending scholarships but it does seem to have a group of real winners and losers. It seems to me the winners are current college seniors who would return for a 5th year if possible. The big losers are the current college seniors who are the recruits for the class of 2022. Here is my logic.

As I understand it, current seniors can take an extra year of eligibility without their scholarship counting against the school. So let’s take KU. So next year, KU can have everyone return including Lightfoot, De Sousa and Marcus Garrett. Plus KU would have the 3 new freshmen which would be K.J. Adams and Zach Clemence and hopefully Hunter Sallis. That would be 16 scholarship players. Now clearly no harm no foul for the 2021 season. KU would be allowed to have 16 scholarship players. Of course, playing time is clearly going to be an issue but that is for another time. Here is where the problem comes in.

After the 2021 season, Lightfoot, Garrett and De Sousa graduate and everyone else returns. KU is now down to 13 scholarship athletes returning since all the athletes were granted an extra year of eligibility. Oddly, KU would have 8 sophomores on the roster, Jalen Wilson, Gethro Muscadine, Dajuan Harris, Latrell Jossell and Bryce Thompson plus Sallis (hopefully), Adams and Clemence. With 13 scholarship athletes returning (potentially) there would be no spots for any new recruits. Now of course, there will be players leaving early or transferring but that just transfers the problem to someone else. You see, by granting everyone an extra year of eligibility, you are creating a scholarship surplus for the out years that means for every college senior that stays for an extra year, someone down the road will have to lose a scholarship.

An interesting caveat that I just read about, probably more relevant to football, is that extra eligibility does not include a guaranty that a scholarship will be given.

Each coach can effectively elect not to offer a fifth year (or sixth for redshirts) of scholarship to the players who otherwise would have graduated.

It's a harsh result, but in hoops, Self has to weigh a Litghtfoot against a 4 or 5 star freshman. I can see football saying to non-starters you had your four/five years already (most of whom aren't 3 star or better players right now), but we need to make room for younger players who will build the program for the next 3 years.

That seems to be sensible, AZ. But the result of that is that an extra year of eligibility is basically meaningless for the marginal players. Again, I have no strong opinion one way or the other. I do appreciate the NCAA trying to at least window dress at providing some juice to the student athletes. On par, this seems like a reasonable and decent thing but in actuality, mostly meaningless. Like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

CorpusJayhawk wrote: The NCAA granted all fall athletes an extra year of eligibility as a result of this virus thing. The story on ESPN speaks to the challenge it poses to scholarship management. I have no real opinion one way or the other on extending scholarships but it does seem to have a group of real winners and losers. It seems to me the winners are current college seniors who would return for a 5th year if possible. The big losers are the current college seniors who are the recruits for the class of 2022. Here is my logic.

As I understand it, current seniors can take an extra year of eligibility without their scholarship counting against the school. So let’s take KU. So next year, KU can have everyone return including Lightfoot, De Sousa and Marcus Garrett. Plus KU would have the 3 new freshmen which would be K.J. Adams and Zach Clemence and hopefully Hunter Sallis. That would be 16 scholarship players. Now clearly no harm no foul for the 2021 season. KU would be allowed to have 16 scholarship players. Of course, playing time is clearly going to be an issue but that is for another time. Here is where the problem comes in.

After the 2021 season, Lightfoot, Garrett and De Sousa graduate and everyone else returns. KU is now down to 13 scholarship athletes returning since all the athletes were granted an extra year of eligibility. Oddly, KU would have 8 sophomores on the roster, Jalen Wilson, Gethro Muscadine, Dajuan Harris, Latrell Jossell and Bryce Thompson plus Sallis (hopefully), Adams and Clemence. With 13 scholarship athletes returning (potentially) there would be no spots for any new recruits. Now of course, there will be players leaving early or transferring but that just transfers the problem to someone else. You see, by granting everyone an extra year of eligibility, you are creating a scholarship surplus for the out years that means for every college senior that stays for an extra year, someone down the road will have to lose a scholarship.

the extra year is just for fall sports not winter sports