‘Go get a job or do something else’: Will Stein in favor of eligibility change
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- NCAA committee expected to vote on five-year rule tied to 19 or graduation.
- Proposal would end redshirt seasons and limit waivers to narrow exceptions.
- Coaches and ADs express roster concerns and legal questions about current rules.
Count new Kentucky football coach Will Stein among the fans of the latest proposal to fix the seemingly endless parade of waivers and lawsuits extending college athletes’ eligibility.
An NCAA committee is expected to vote next week on a proposal that would grant five years of eligibility to every athlete starting with whichever comes earliest of their high school graduation or turning 19 years old, according to a report from Yahoo Sports on Wednesday. The proposal would do away with redshirt seasons and eligibility-extending waivers in all but the most limited circumstances (maternity leave, military service or religious missions).
“I’m in favor of the five-for-five,” Stein told the Herald-Leader in a one-on-one interview before spring practice. “Like, you got five years to play five years. I don’t know why that’s so difficult.
“...We shouldn’t have 26-, 27-year-olds playing college football. I mean, go get a job or do something else.”
Currently, college athletes have five years to complete four seasons of eligibility. In football, unlike in men’s or women’s basketball, players can appear in up to four regular season games in one season and still maintain a redshirt year that doesn’t count as one of their four seasons of eligibility.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the eligibility clock has rarely been that simple, though. Athletes were given a blanket waiver for the 2020-21 academic year, excluding those games from counting against their eligibility clock due to worries about competing during the pandemic. Since then, players have successfully appealed for a variety of waivers — most often dealing with an injury that excluded them from playing part or all of a season — to lengthen their eligibility even more.
Former Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia successfully sued the NCAA last year to prevent the governing body from counting his junior-college experience against his four seasons of eligibility, opening the door for a number of former junior-college athletes to play another season.
College basketball rosters have grown even older as foreign professional players sought eligibility. Among the biggest stories of the recently completed basketball season was Charles Bediako’s quest to return to college basketball at Alabama after playing in the NBA G League. An Alabama judge initially approved a restraining order that allowed Bediako to appear in five games for Alabama, but his request for a preliminary injunction that would have allowed him to play the rest of the season was later denied by a different judge.
“I played five years of college football, and that was plenty for me,” Stein said. “I think when you’ve added money involved, it’s hard for guys to leave college football because they’re getting a check. If they don’t feel like they’re going to be making the same amount in the National Football League or even having a chance, well, they’re going to do everything in their power to stay.”
The roster Stein has built since he was hired as UK’s coach in December seems to reflect that preference.
Outside linebacker Antonio O’Berry, who began his career at a Division II school, was the only sixth-year player the new staff signed from the transfer portal. Returning backup punter and holder Wilson Berry is also apparently in line for a sixth college season after being added to the spring roster. Berry, who played three years of Australian Rules Football in his home country between graduating high school and enrolling at Kentucky, will turn 28 in June and is married with two young children.
A number of questions remain about the latest eligibility proposal, according to Yahoo’s report. When would it go into effect? How would current players be grandfathered into the new system? Would athletes who are out of eligibility under the current system because they played four full seasons in four years be allowed to return to college sports next fall?
And perhaps most importantly, would the new rule stand up to any subsequent legal challenges?
“Every time someone doesn’t get the answer they want and they run to a local authority, that only makes it worse,” outgoing UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart told the Herald-Leader in February. “It only makes it worse. We’ve got to at some point in time not do that, and I don’t know how you stop that.”