Yeah Corey it feels good to be able to stick my head out of the sand a little bit. Having a year where your team smokes two big rivals at their place ( Tenn and FSU ) and beating two top ten teams otherwise ( LSU and Michigan ) can give you a bit more confidence. The days where teams like FSU and Miami always had QBs in waiting sitting on the bench that you only heard about because they never saw the field until it was their turn as juniors are long past it seems. When they finally did get their turn I would always marvel at how really good they actually were and it wasn't always just empty hype.
Kp I have felt that way about pro sports for a long time.... baseball, basketball and the NFL. Not too many Bill Bellichick/Tom Brady lifelong alliances out there where your fan loyalty isn't just to the uniform only because the players switch so often.
I have seen speculation that Fields claimed that he was promised he could play baseball at UGA as he was an excellent high school baseball player and had dreams of being Kyler Murray, but after that incident that he could never play baseball at UGA since that guy who used the n word on him was a baseball player. If he plays baseball at Ohio State I might buy that, but I think it's more likely he never plays baseball in college. Irish have both been blocked ...Alohi Gilman a transfer from Navy because they changed the rules for player who hoped they could go to the NFL was blocked, and benefited as Jess Sheppard a Womens basketball player who we could not have won that Nat'l Championship without was granted immediate eligbility over coaching changes/turmoil at Neb in her soph year.
The Ole Miss players were a watershed event, opening a lot of doors. It was widely thought that one of the main reasons that Patterson enrolled at Ole Miss was they hired his brother, speculation of course is that it was a package deal, brother gets a start in coaching if he brings his little brother along with him. Then it all blows up and it becomes he was lied to by Ole Miss staff of which his brother was a part of at that time. Penn State as well allowing free transfers because of the JoePa scandal. If Bru McCoy gets immediate eligibility because he was lied to about Kingsbury being his OCoord then pretty much any kid who signs a NLI and then after that date his position coach leaves is probably going to have a good chance of becoming a free agent. Tate Martel will claim no doubt that Ohio State now that Urban Meyer is gone has changed and what he went there for is no longer available so he's entitled to a do over. Obviously not every kid who entered the Portal and will transfer is going to request immediate playing time but we're on the edge of free agency for these kids.
More and more NCAA football is headed the way NCAA basketball went. I watch barely a game of college basket ball through the season and haven't for several years now. If NCAA football keeps heading in the direction is is now it won't be long until my interest is the same.
Tim, agreed. The "one and dones" in college basketball have made it almost impossible to even know who is playing on your own team. If that connection in college football is ever broken, then I will spend my Saturdays in the fall doing something else.
Oh I agree, which is why I said 'nothing against the Buckeyes'.. This is a dangerous precedent being set by the NCAA themselves. I wonder if they will give ND's Alohi Gillman another year after making him sit out last year?
Corey, that's what I was.thinking. Last year we had 2 quarterbacks transfer and they had to sit out a year. I think they should sue. I'm sure Saban verbally abused them
Washington State gets a favorable and unusual ruling from the NCAA on Grad Transfer. Gabe Gurud a QB from Eastern Washington who threw for 10K yards in his career there was given a medical hardship that allows him to graduate transfer to Wash State. He was injured in the 5th game last year and ordinarily that would have disqualified him as a Medical Redshirt. But EWU went to the playoffs and made the finals extending their season enough that he played in just 1/3 of their games an allowing him to qualify. Unusual but seems like a fair application of the rules.
I guess the 4 game rule for regular redshirts doesn't apply to medical redshirts? I have not heard of the 1/3 rule. I wonder if that rule applies to Clemson and Alabama who played 15 games last season?
I would think it might. I know we had a player who was injured in the 1st game of the year and they used that new redshirt rule to rehab him and have him ready for the last game of the year, that would have been his 2nd game, and then he could play in the potential 2 extra games in the playoffs and still have that as a redshirt year. I was aware of the Medical Redshirt rule as we have a basketball player who is going to get one this year, this was his senior year and he'd have been out of eligibility but he qualified for the Medical redshirt so he can be back next year. This is the first time I've ever heard though about a case like this though where the extra games get to figure into the equation. It does seem fair though, if a bit unusual.
The WSU boards have been following this for some time and discussed it at length. Everything I repeat here is hearsay since I have not had the gaf to verify, but here goes. Typically, in a season, almost all D-1 teams will play in 12, 13, or 14 games so the "usual" ruling is if a player has played in more than 4 games, a medical redshirt is not allowed. Evidently, the rule isn't written explicitly limiting the number of games to 4. Instead, the rule reads that the limit is 1/3 of the games played by their team, and in almost every instance applied, that number becomes 4 (12, 13, or 14). And indeed, Gage Gubrud was denied his medical waiver by the NCAA. However, in his appeal, he pointed out that his team played in 15 games this year (since EWU went to the FCSCG) and 15/3 = 5, which is the number of games in which he played. Based on that, it seems pretty cut and dry, and "as expected" his appeal was approved, followed with an almost immediate transfer to WSU. Nothing can ever be easy with the NCAA, even application of math, or the rules written around them.