The Selective Outrage Over College Football Eligibility Is Fun to Watch
By Scott King
The NCAA changed the rule.
Let me repeat that:
THE NCAA CHANGED THE ELIGIBILITY RULE.
On its own.
The players did not create this mess. The NCAA did.
When players such as Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris completed their fourth college seasons, the rules said their eligibility was exhausted. College football was no longer an option, so they pursued the NFL.
Then, after the NFL Draft and after players had already entered the professional process, the NCAA adopted a new eligibility model allowing athletes up to five seasons of competition.
But the NCAA decided not to extend that opportunity to players who had just completed their fourth seasons.
Now those players are fighting for the same fifth season being given to other athletes, and people are acting as if they are trying to exploit some outrageous loophole.
That is nonsense.
If this rule had been announced earlier, some of these players never would have left college. They would have stayed in school, entered the transfer portal or found another program for their fifth season.
They did not knowingly choose the NFL over another year of college football. That choice did not exist when they made their decisions. The NCAA told them their college eligibility was over.
So they moved on.
Then the NCAA moved the line.
The players are not responsible for the timing of the rule change. They should not be punished because the NCAA waited until after they had entered NFL camps to announce it.
The selective outrage is particularly entertaining because the modern college sports system was built through legal challenges against the NCAA.
Players sued and helped create NIL rights.
Players and government officials challenged transfer restrictions and created immediate eligibility.
Players sued over compensation and opened the door to direct revenue sharing.
Today’s athletes benefit from NIL even though they were not plaintiffs in the original lawsuits. Players transfer and compete immediately even though they had nothing to do with the legal challenges that changed those rules.
Nobody argues that NIL should be limited to the players who personally sued the NCAA.
Nobody says immediate transfer eligibility should apply only to the athletes who fought the original rule.
But when another group of players challenges an NCAA decision, suddenly everyone becomes deeply concerned about tradition, fairness and the integrity of college athletics.
Please.
It is fair to establish reasonable limits. Nobody is arguing that a player should spend several productive years in the NFL and then return to play another season in the SEC.
That is not what happened here.
These players briefly pursued the only football opportunity available to them after the NCAA declared their college careers finished. When the NCAA subsequently changed its eligibility model, they asked to receive the same opportunity being provided to similarly situated athletes.
That is not exploiting the system.
It is challenging an arbitrary cutoff created by the organization that changed the rule.
The NCAA cannot force athletes to make career decisions under one set of rules, rewrite those rules after the decisions have been made and then pretend the players are the problem.
College football did not suddenly become sacred because a young player wore an NFL helmet for a few weeks.
If legal challenges were an acceptable way to establish NIL, transfer freedom and player compensation, then players are equally entitled to challenge an eligibility decision that excluded them solely because of when the NCAA decided to act.
You cannot celebrate player empowerment when you like the outcome and condemn it when you do not.
That is not principle.
That is selective outrage.