In August, the NCAA granted every fall student-athlete an extra year of eligibility if they want it, meaning the 2020-21 year doesn’t count against them.
It’s a generous waiver that permits student-athletes an opportunity to reclaim this past season that was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The waiver applies to all student-athletes, meaning a redshirt senior in his fifth year in 2020 will be given an opportunity to come back for a sixth year and a true freshman in 2020 will technically still be considered a true freshman in 2021.
However, there could be some unintended consequences.
With the previous recruiting class fully signed and spring practices underway, the expanded scholarship counts are now in effect. The reality of the waiver has set in and the rule has given coaches headaches as to how they’ll manage future rosters.
ESPN spoke to two FBS directors of player personnel to help get a clearer idea about what the waiver means and its impact on college football in the short- and long-term.
How does it work?
Each program is capped at 85 scholarships, so if 10 student-athletes who would have normally gone on to graduate or left for the NFL all wanted to come back, that poses a problem for hitting the 85-scholarship limit after bringing in a full recruiting class.
The NCAA is allowing schools to go over the limit by however many fourth-year seniors or redshirt seniors were on the 2020 roster.
“For us, we’ve got 85 scholarships and then we’ve got six seniors that decided to stay, so we’re technically at 91,” the first source said. “Let’s say you wanted to hold six spots from seniors, but you wanted to stay at 85 and not go over. There were schools that said, ‘I don’t want to risk it with this kid in the 2021 class and I want to save those spots for the 2022 class.’ Technically you could’ve done that.”
That’s where the number crunching and concerns come in. The NCAA does not yet have a rule in place beyond the 2021 season. Because each student-athlete has an extra year of eligibility, 2021 will not be the only year teams will need to go over the limit of 85 scholarships.
What are the concerns?
If the NCAA doesn’t come up with a rule to allow teams to go over the scholarship limit beyond 2021, coaches and personnel directors are concerned about what that means for roster-management efforts and how they will fit everyone.
Coaches will get extra scholarships for the seniors in the 2021 season, but they don’t have any help for the 2022 season with juniors who would have been seniors this coming season. Those players normally would come off the books after this upcoming season, but since they’re now technically juniors, they can come back in 2022.
Some of those older, veteran players will graduate from school academically, but still have eligibility left, which is likely going to cause some uncomfortable conversations and decisions between coaches and the student-athletes.
“The gray area that I don’t think a lot of people understand is you’re only bound to these guys until they graduate,” the first source said. “Once they graduate, you don’t have to renew their scholarship. A lot of people don’t do that because it’s not a good practice and if they’re good players you want them to stay, but that’s part of what could happen with all of this.”
There is a good chance some of these situations get ironed out by then, but because roster management and recruiting happen so fast, it is still a present concern. Eventually, there will be a process to even out the numbers.
But a hard drop-off from being able to go over the scholarship limit to returning to a strict 85 could create monster graduating classes, leaving big gaps on rosters.
“We technically have 31 true freshmen, because the 2020 true freshmen are still considered freshmen and now combined with the 2021 class,” the first source said. “We could’ve signed nine more players, so if we would’ve done that, you’re talking about a 40-person freshman class. You’ll have attrition, transfers and guys that go pro, but still, you’re talking about a big senior class you’ll eventually have to replace.”
How will this impact recruiting?
Coaches are already crunching numbers, and as one DPP said, they could have signed nine more prospects but chose not to, instead using some of those spots on grad transfers because those players have only one year of eligibility remaining instead of the five possible years a high school prospect would have.
That allows for coaches to avoid having holes for the 2021 season while also taking the scholarship off the books to open a spot for 2022 high school recruits.
But there will be an impact on next year’s recruiting class.
“They’re going to be screwed. I think the way to go for some of those guys is going back a class [to 2023] if they can, going to prep school or some might have to go juco,” the first source said. “I know certain schools have a lot of attrition, guys that are leaving, but there are programs that like all their guys on the roster and they don’t have spots for these 2022 guys.”
Added the second source: “We took a full 25 [with high school prospects and transfers] in 2021 and we have some seniors coming back. Did we take a few more transfers because we knew we could replenish faster? Yes. That being said, we’re only going to take 17 in the 2022 class, where in any other given year, we might take 22 or 23. That’s six kids, so if you do the math and let’s say six kids at the over 100 FBS programs out there, you’re talking about 600 kids who aren’t going to get a scholarship at the FBS level.”
These particular personnel directors believe we will see an influx of high school recruits committing sooner than normal in this 2022 class to help hold a spot and ensure they have a spot in the classes.
That, unfortunately, doesn’t mean they will be safe from losing that spot because programs aren’t bound to honor the scholarship until a prospect signs a national letter of intent.
“If they don’t change anything this year and they say you have to have a hard cap 85 [spots] after this year, you’ll have more 2022 kids get dropped than ever before,” the first source said. “Because coaches, they’re trying to get commits no matter what. You get into November and December [before the early signing period] and some of the guys on your roster you were banking on leaving, transferring or graduating, don’t and want to come back, now you have to tell a 2022 kid he can’t come.”
Does money factor into some of these decisions?
Yes, especially because athletic scholarships come out of a budget and can be very costly.
Given the current financial climate, with some schools already in the red because of COVID-19, this is an aspect of the eligibility rule that schools are having to consider if they can cover the cost of the extra scholarships.
For example, Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel estimated the athletic department spends roughly $29 million over five years on scholarship costs. If every student-athlete stayed an extra year, that would add roughly $6 million of expenses.
“We’ve got all these juniors that stayed juniors that we’re trying to figure out, when do these guys graduate? Is this guy going to go pro? Are some of them going to leave because of numbers?”
One FBS director of player personnel
That’s not likely that every football player would end up staying, but even a few scholarships will impact budgets. If a school is now going over the limit by five scholarships, that is now 90 scholarships for which the school has to budget.
“We had that meeting for budget purposes back when they announced this rule,” the first source said. “Who do you think would use the extra year? Who do you think would use it, but transfer out? Who do you think is going to try to go pro, so we could figure out what we would need to budget for going forward.”
That scholarship factors in tuition, meals and room and board, whether the player lives on or off campus.
“When you add more scholarships that’s close to $10,000 to $15,000 in room and board money per kid,” the first source said. “So you’re talking $15,000 per guy over the 85. If you have seven over, that’s seven times 15, so you’re paying $105,000 just for room and board, not including the tuition and meals.”
Most Power 5 programs will be able to cover that cost, but not every program will be able to afford going over, especially as athletic departments across the country are dealing with financial losses from COVID-19.
“Who suffers? The Group of 5 school where the money is tight,” the second source said. “Where maybe they get pressure from the administration to say, ‘Hey, we can’t pay for all these guys, we need you to choose two.’ Then only two of these seniors can come back and the others can’t.”
Does that mean we’ll see more names in the transfer portal?
That is already the case. Three were 342 more FBS players who entered the portal from Dec. 1 to Jan. 20 this year than the previous season.
Coaches believe some of the players who entered the portal were related to this rule allowing an extra year of eligibility.
“If you have seven seniors that come back, you can go over the limit with them, but everybody else is technically not replaceable to go over the 85,” the second source said. “We’ve got all these juniors that stayed juniors that we’re trying to figure out. When do these guys graduate? Is this guy going to go pro? Are some of them going to leave because of numbers?”
This could even impact the NFL draft. Because seniors are coming back and third-year players will technically be sophomores in some cases, there could be more players trying to enter the draft in 2022 than before.
“Next year’s draft is going to be overpopulated,” the first source said. “You’re talking about seniors that stayed, juniors that didn’t become seniors and everybody else that’s been out for three years. I told a couple of our guys who were debating for this draft, I said, ‘You need to go out this year, because the numbers next year are going to be ridiculous.'”
This is all based on the premise that the NCAA doesn’t come up with a new rule.
So, what is the solution?
At this point, there isn’t one. Any solution the NCAA comes up with will eventually lead back to returning to the 85-scholarship limit.
Whether that creates large senior classes that need to be accounted for, or allows schools to gradually get back to 85, something needs to happen to avoid a mess.
Coaches within different conferences are putting together proposals to figure out the best solution, but no final proposal has been assembled just yet.
“It’s like quantum physics to understand some of it,” the first source said.
Some say the NCAA should allow schools to go over the total scholarship limit for two years to help get the numbers down eventually. Some think it should be phased out by allowing teams to go over the 85 limit by half the number of seniors for 2022 and continue cutting it in half until schools are back to normal.
“I’d like to say there’s a great solution, but I don’t know what that is,” the second source said. “At some point, we’re going to have a reckoning with either the high school kids or the economics. … The economics is always going to win out.”