New rules on transfers may be coming in 2018

[CuseLegacy]

 

[CuseLegacy]

Sources: Major Potential Shift In NCAA Transfer Rules
In a potentially paradigm-shifting proposal, the NCAA members may vote to allow all Division-I transfers to be eligible to play immediately.


In a potentially paradigm-shifting proposal, the NCAA members may vote to allow all Division-I transfers to be eligible to play immediately. The only potential restrictions are that student-athletes would be asked to meet a minimum GPA, in order to transfer immediately, and that any additional transfer would require the student-athletes to sit out a full year. The proposal, which is being solicited among members for feedback, is gaining increased traction in recent weeks, a source confirms.


In April, a 19-person task force comprised of commissioners, athletic directors, coaches, and student-athletes initially assembled under the name of Division I Transfer Working Group. Their mission was to bring a fresh approach to the often publicly maligned transfer process. Although earlier groups had been formed in prior years under similar missions, the Transfer Working Group was given more data, while also tasked with the goal of trying to create uniformity within the transfer process.

By late June, the Transfer Working Group made progress on creating uniformity in transfer rules. They contemplated two polar-opposite options: the first was to require every student-athlete to sit out a year, while the second option was to enable every student-athlete to be immediately eligible upon transferring to a new school, as long as they achieved a minimum GPA designed to lead the student-athlete ultimately to graduate.


TWG Chairman Justin Sell, Athletic Director of South Dakota State, told NCAA Associate Director of Public and Media Relations Michelle Brutlag Hosick at the time, “I am thrilled with the great progress made this week, and I’m confident we can move forward with some initial concepts for consideration in this year’s legislative cycle. We are working toward academics-based, data-driven decisions that benefit student-athletes, teams and schools.


Within recent weeks, it has become more clear that the latter option of immediate eligibility for transfers who achieve a minimum GPA is the one gaining traction amongst members. The proposal must be completed by Nov. 1. The members of the Transfer Working Group will continue to seek feedback from fellow coaches, directors, commissioners and student-athletes in the days ahead, but it is becoming more likely that the proposal will be voted upon next April with the possibility of this going into effect as early as the 2018-19 calendar. The uniformity of applying the same rules across all sports would potentially streamline the transfer process.

Proponents of student-athletes being permitted to change schools as freely as coaches will undoubtedly laud this potential new development. The concern from some detractors may be the further encouragement of raiding smaller programs as well as the likelihood that the number of annual transfers will grow exponentially. The challenge of tracking potential tampering in pending transfers may also be a potential hazard of the new development.

 

[CuseLegacy]

The Division I Transfer Working Group wants to hear from others in the membership about a comprehensive package of concepts intended to improve the transfer environment for college athletes, coaches and teams in Division I. The group will survey presidents, athletics administrators, faculty and coaches on a variety of ideas, including eliminating permission-to-contact rules and replacing them with a model that involves a college athlete-initiated notification of intent to transfer, stressing ethical recruiting practices and new rules for postgraduate student-athletes.

 

[Sherman20]

This is a terrible idea. I can't believe schools would even consider this. There will be no way for programs to plan their rosters from year to year.

 

[EastCoast2]

I get that there are issues with coaches, players may not be a good fit, get homesick, etc. But what's to stop Kentucky or Duke from not only taking the best players out of high school, but taking the best freshmen and sophomore players and creating super-super teams? If Chase Jeter and Derryck Thornton don't work out at Duke, kick them out and have them play immediately at UNLV, then make an offer to Kris Dunn and Buddy Hield to play for you for one year.

 

[PauliePeppas]

Chaos is an understatement if this went thru

 

[GooseMutt]

This is a terrible idea. I can't believe schools would even consider this. There will be no way for programs to plan their rosters from year to year.

Yes, kid has a stellar freshman year and Kentucky comes a calling. This would be insane to manage and monitor. What coach would want this other than the predators.

 

[Madbiker]

Incredibly dumb idea. Will turn things into a free agent bazaar. Will result in total chaos.

 

[BlackSquirrels]

This sounds awesome. Most other NCAA sports do not require athletes to sit out a year and somehow coaches of those sports are able to deal with it.

SU's top finisher at the 2014 men's cross country championship transferred to Mississippi and was running indoor track meets for Ole Miss within a couple of months. SU won the NCAA championship without him in 2015.

I just think back to the winter of 2011-12 when Fab Melo started having grade issues. Maybe one of SU's coaches could have taken a trip down to Bucknell and convinced Mike Muscala to play the rest of that season for Syracuse during the semester break.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

This sounds awesome. Most other NCAA sports do not require athletes to sit out a year and somehow coaches of those sports are able to deal with it.

SU's top finisher at the 2014 men's cross country championship transferred to Mississippi and was running indoor track meets for Ole Miss within a couple of months. SU won the NCAA championship without him in 2015.

I just think back to the winter of 2011-12 when Fab Melo started having grade issues. Maybe one of SU's coaches could have taken a trip down to Bucknell and convinced Mike Muscala to play the rest of that season for Syracuse during the semester break.

You won't think it's "awesome" when Battle goes to the NBA and Dolezaj, Sidibe and Brissett all transfer after this season.

 

[Consigliere]

Quite a leap from current system. I would be in favor of removing all restrictions on graduate transfers and allowing walkons at one institution to transfer to another and be placed on scholarship, but full free agency? WWW is going to need a bigger budget.

 

[Jasoncuse]

This sounds awesome. Most other NCAA sports do not require athletes to sit out a year and somehow coaches of those sports are able to deal with it.

SU's top finisher at the 2014 men's cross country championship transferred to Mississippi and was running indoor track meets for Ole Miss within a couple of months. SU won the NCAA championship without him in 2015.

I just think back to the winter of 2011-12 when Fab Melo started having grade issues. Maybe one of SU's coaches could have taken a trip down to Bucknell and convinced Mike Muscala to play the rest of that season for Syracuse during the semester break.

Most other NCAA sports don't have the interest, exposure or popularity. Nor are there hundreds of millions of dollars involved Men's Cross Country or Women's Field Hockey.

 

[sutomcat]

Quite a leap from current system. I would be in favor of removing all restrictions on graduate transfers and allowing walkons at one institution to transfer to another and be placed on scholarship, but full free agency? WWW is going to need a bigger budget.

This is a reasonable compromise.

I think all the kids that leave college before they graduate have hurt college basketball. It used to be that fans had 4 or maybe 5 years to get to know the players and then they left.

I think that length of time is needed for the fans to build a strong bond with the players and for the players to mature into grownups.

I think the NCAA should take the fans, who pay for everything and make everything possible, into account when making these kinds of decisions. That means players shouldn't be free to jump ship with no restrictions to another school. This is going to alienate and confuse fans and going to lead to some teams having really screwed up rosters. That all adds up to making the game harder to follow, less competitive and less attractive.

I would be okay with a tweak to allow immediate transfer when the head coach leaves (like done when a team goes on NCAA probation).

 

[RealMcNeil]

"Transfer" backwards is "free agent," or something like that...

 

[RF2044]

This is a reasonable compromise.

I think all the kids that leave college before they graduate have hurt college basketball. It used to be that fans had 4 or maybe 5 years to get to know the players and then they left.

I think that length of time is needed for the fans to build a strong bond with the players and for the players to mature into grownups.

I think the NCAA should take the fans, who pay for everything and make everything possible, into account when making these kinds of decisions. That means players shouldn't be free to jump ship with no restrictions to another school. This is going to alienate and confuse fans and going to lead to some teams having really screwed up rosters. That all adds up to making the game harder to follow, less competitive and less attractive.

I would be okay with a tweak to allow immediate transfer when the head coach leaves (like done when a team goes on NCAA probation).

Agree with your last sentence 100%. A more common sense approach would be to adjust the rules to account for the instances where players are really impacted -- like a coach leaving. In such instances, players should have the full ability to explore other options without restriction. Take away the BS power that universities have to block transfers to one school or another arbitrarily, benefitting their own self-interests but not necessarily the best interests of the player.

But there's no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater, or remove controls that make sense.

 

[Ward]

This is a reasonable compromise.

I think all the kids that leave college before they graduate have hurt college basketball. It used to be that fans had 4 or maybe 5 years to get to know the players and then they left.

I think that length of time is needed for the fans to build a strong bond with the players and for the players to mature into grownups.

I think the NCAA should take the fans, who pay for everything and make everything possible, into account when making these kinds of decisions. That means players shouldn't be free to jump ship with no restrictions to another school. This is going to alienate and confuse fans and going to lead to some teams having really screwed up rosters. That all adds up to making the game harder to follow, less competitive and less attractive.

I would be okay with a tweak to allow immediate transfer when the head coach leaves (like done when a team goes on NCAA probation).

I agree with most of what you're saying in how it would alienate some of the fans. However, should that really be one of the primary factors weighed? The main focus should be what's best for the kids although like you said it routinely is what will make the adults in the sport the most money.

I agree with Bilas when he says it's hypocritical that there are basically non-compete clauses to begin with if they are indeed just students and not paid employees. It will be chaos but it's the monster the major parties involved created so I don't blame the kids at all for using the system to help themselves. Especially if they're the only ones not getting paid.

 

[Consigliere]

This is a reasonable compromise.

I would be okay with a tweak to allow immediate transfer when the head coach leaves (like done when a team goes on NCAA probation).

Ok, I'll give you that one too. Of course ideally if a student athlete wants to transfer to an institution that has an academic program not offered by their initial school or has a markedly better program it would be nice to see that scenario considered but that is probably too much of a Pandora's box. I remember Sonny Spera considering a transfer to Buffalo for dentistry school prior to completing his undergrad degree. Seems like he should have been able to use his last year of eligibility to jump start his graduate degree but with that loophole I imagine Kentucky would institute a graduate degree program in "The History of Bluegrass" and find 3 or 4 6'9" scholars to transfer in as needed each year.

 

[SacKingCuse]

Might as well as just pay all players a salary and institute a salary cap for programs. Plus the added signing bonus would help you with your moving expenses.

 

[GooseMutt]

Ok, I'll give you that one too. Of course ideally if a student athlete wants to transfer to an institution that has an academic program not offered by their initial school or has a markedly better program it would be nice to see that scenario considered but that is probably too much of a Pandora's box. I remember Sonny Spera considering a transfer to Buffalo for dentistry school prior to completing his undergrad degree. Seems like he should have been able to use his last year of eligibility to jump start his graduate degree but with that loophole I imagine Kentucky would institute a graduate degree program in "The History of Bluegrass" and find 3 or 4 6'9" scholars to transfer in as needed each year.

That opportunity/ loophole will be unfortunately easily exploited

 

[Madbiker]

If you're building the immediate transfer case on the notion that coaches can leave whenever they want...then just allow immediate transfers in the specific case when a coaching change is made.Leave everyone else alone. If you think college athletics is too much a business now wait until you see what happens when the big fish can steal all the top players from the smaller fish by offering them a bigger stage, more exposure, immediate PT, and more under-the-table graft.

 

[pfister1]

As a fan I hate the idea. The last thing we need is more unsettled rosters. Seems like it will really put programs that are trying to build at a disadvantage.

That said, why should student athletes be restricted from moving to better situations? Whether they are upgrading the quality of the basketball program or the quality of their degree, why not? A regular student has freedom of movement. If TT was truly homesick or SU just didn't turn out to be what he had anticipated why shouldn't he be allowed to change his mind?

I am absolutely in favor of this for all athletes that are not awarded guaranteed four (4) year scholarships. I might be susceptible to being convinced that those with 4 year awards should be subject to additional restrictions.

 

[AlaskaSU]

Might as well as just pay all players a salary and institute a salary cap for programs. Plus the added signing bonus would help you with your moving expenses.

Better yet, sell the teams to the NBA. Collect rent on the stadiums.

 

[JLine]

Hell, let's just start allowing trades too. One year contracts, then unrestricted free agency to all.

 

[Cheriehoop]

When I went to college in the dark ages, many students didn't transfer because of the loss of credits between one college and the other. Do colleges now automatically accept or more readily accept transfer credits unlike when I went to college? I know some people back then who lost up to an entire semester of credits after just one year. Many just stayed at their original choice after being told how many credits they would lose transferring.

 

[Toga]

When I went to college in the dark ages, many students didn't transfer because of the loss of credits between one college and the other. Do colleges now automatically accept or more readily accept transfer credits unlike when I went to college? I know some people back then who lost up to an entire semester of credits after just one year. Many just stayed at their original choice after being told how many credits they would lose transferring.

I thought there was still ?? a limitation on the number of credits one could transfer and still get a degree at the new school.