Update: The Big 12 voted on a differently-worded rule on Thursday -- and passed it.
This college football transfer rule is silly. The way the Big 12 described it is ridiculous.
A non-scholarship player should be allowed to leave for a scholarship opportunity at another school without penalty. Duh.
Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
Baker Mayfield will be eligible for OU in 2017, Bowlsby confirms. Texas Tech intended to put him on scholarship. Was not written.
— David Ubben (@davidubben) June 2, 2016
Per ESPN’s Jake Trotter, the rule was changed to give schools a bit more control over their walk-ons.
Sources said part of the new language being discussed would allow a walk-on’s school to offer a scholarship to keep him. If the walk-on then still elected to transfer within the conference, the player would face the league’s transfer eligibility restrictions.
If this rule ever applies to anyone other than Baker Mayfield, it might make the Big 12’s hare-brained explanation of it and hand-wringing over it worth it. Might.
Original post follows...
The Big 12 voted on Wednesday to keep the status quo in terms of walk-on transfer rules, which means Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield will only have one year of eligibility remaining. The vote was 5-5, and it needed six votes to pass.
Mayfield’s departure from Texas Tech to Oklahoma was what spawned the fight. Mayfield walked on in Lubbock and won the starting job as a true freshman in 2013, but enrolled at Oklahoma in January after a subsequent lack of playing time and what seem like poor relationships at Tech. He did not get a release from Tech to transfer inside the conference, and as such was docked a year of eligibility in addition to sitting out a year.
Mayfield was a star for the Sooners in 2015, leading Oklahoma to a Big 12 title and a Playoff berth. With this vote, Mayfield is entering his final year for the Sooners in 2016.
He’d have the ability to transfer and play right away as a graduate student in 2017, but he won’t be able to stay in Norman.
Putting Mayfield’s situation aside, this rule is bewildering. Schools invest relatively little in walk-ons, and it seems deeply unfair to subject them to transfer restrictions. In the world of NCAA transfer rules, a school should still have to invest a scholarship in a player in order to control him to that level. I don’t think schools should be able to impose transfer restrictions on anyone, but doing it to walk-ons seems particularly egregious.
How do high-level Big 12 officials see the situation? Well, differently.
Bowlsby: opposition to the walk-on rule change didn’t want Big 12 teams luring other team’s walk-ons with the promise of scholarships
— Jake Trotter (@Jake_Trotter) June 1, 2016
I highly doubt this will ever become a serious issue, but that didn’t stop the Big 12 commissioner from describing it so luridly. “Luring other team’s walk-ons with the promise of scholarships” has the same tenor as someone worried about Amish teens being led astray while on Rumspringa.
The situation that Bowlsby is describing doesn’t really exist. There will never be a thriving transfer market where programs are falling over each other to throw scholarships at other teams’ walk-ons. If a player is that desired, some school will find room to offer him a scholarship. And more often than not, it’ll be the school where he’s already playing.
NFL teams can almost always sign active-roster players from other teams’ practice squads, so why should college teams be unable to do the equivalent?
College football is stuffed to the gills with bad rules. The fact that we’re only now talking about this shows how far down the list this one is, in terms of relative odiousness.
If a walk-on feels compelled to transfer to continue pursuing his football career, he should be able to do so at the school of his choosing. And he shouldn’t be held back by a school that feels strongly enough to make things difficult, but not strongly enough to give him a scholarship.
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