What Does the NCAA Eligibility Ruling Mean For MTSU?
Last week, the NCAA announced a ruling that allowed all student-athletes affected by COVID-19 in the fall sports would be granted an extra year of eligibility. They also clarified that the extra year of eligibility will be applied whether the student-athlete played no games this fall, a portion of games, or every game as scheduled.
The move was first reported by The Athletic:
Shortly thereafter, the NCAA released an official ruling:
"Members directed the Council, the Division I Competition Oversight Committee and the Division I Football Oversight Committee to work on models for championships in the impacted fall sports. The priority remains preserving opportunities for winter and spring sport student-athletes who did not have the chance to participate in NCAA championships in 2019-20.
The board noted that its decision regarding fall championships would help Division I college athletes as they plan for their futures.
“We want to provide opportunities for student-athletes whenever possible,” said acting board chair Denise Trauth, president of Texas State. “We understand it will be complicated and different, and we’re not certain how it will look. But we believe it’s important to try to give students that championship experience.”
Additionally, all fall sport student-athletes will receive both an additional year of eligibility and an additional year in which to complete it, as the Council suggested, through a blanket waiver."
I applaud the NCAA for being proactive in this case and for looking out for the best interest of the student-athlete. I have been tough on them before and it is important to give credit where credit is due.
The problem with this ruling, however, is the NCAA has not announced how an extra year of eligibility for every player on each school's football roster will be legislated and accommodated for.
For example, the current scholarship limit is 85 on the roster. The MT football roster currently has 15-18 seniors on scholarship (depending on which players are given scholarships at varying parts of the school year. Those numbers can be fluid.)
If, say, 16 seniors want to take advantage of the extra year of eligibility, but the NCAA does not raise the roster cap, schools are put in a tough position. Do you keep a 5th or 6th year Senior around? Does it matter if he is a big-time contributor or only played a handful of snaps all season? Or do you prefer to save that spot for your incoming Freshman class? It's a tough calculation to make and will make for some tough conversations.
"There are a lot of factors that will go into it, but it will definitely affect the number of signees we can take," a program source told GoMiddle.
"There is still a lot to be figured out like how many scholarships over 85 the NCAA will allow, and assuming they do allow over 85, what will the time frame be in which you have to get back to 85," the source continued.
One number I've seen thrown out in regards to the total number of scholarships allowed is 110. The number would be temporary, of course, but would provide needed relief.
Another option would be to allow teams to sign the exact number of prospects they have as graduating Seniors. This would limit what was expected to be a full 25 man signing class down to 15-18 for MT this recruiting cycle. Just like that, 5-10 openings are gone.
Another major consideration: can MT or any other small school afford anywhere from 15-25 extra scholarships this year?
You can check my math here, but with tuition and room and board only, that's an additional $19,605 per scholarship per year. And that doesn't take into account books, supplies nor football or medical costs. With 15-25 additional scholarships, that would be roughly $300k on the low end and $500k+ on the high end.
$500,000 in additional costs... in the midst of a pandemic, with little to no ticket revenue coming in this fall. That's not feasible for MT and it won't be feasible for the vast majority of programs around the country.
What will result is either one of three options:
1) Schools will be forced to essentially "run off" x number of players until they come to a scholarship number they are comfortable with.
2) They go further into debt - borrowing more from the academic side hoping to dig out of the hole in a post-COVID world.
3) Congress or the NCAA provide relief funding for these extra scholarships.
Each option has positives and negatives, to be sure. As we've learned in many other facets of our pandemic-broken lives, it's hard to find a solution that solves all problems while also doing the least amount of damage.
The NCAA has some big decisions to make in the coming weeks to make sure football is feasible moving forward.