Big 12 Officials Considering 5th Year of Eligibility

The Big 12 conference is holding their annual spring meetings in Colorado Springs this week. One of the items on the agenda is a proposal that would give student-athletes five seasons of playing eligibility. Current rules allow players to compete for four seasons during a five-year period. One of the proponents of the proposal is Nebraska athletic director Steve Pederson.

"We've asked that it be put on the agenda of every conference in the country at their spring meetings so it can be discussed," Pederson said of the proposal. "As a committee, we believe it has validity. And now we want to find out if other people believe like we do."

It seems that this idea gets tossed around every few years without gaining much momentum. But I have a hard time deciphering the drawbacks of the extra year of eligibility. Many athletes are already spending five years in college by way of a redshirt year. In addition, the average football player in Divisions I-A and I-AA takes 4.8 years to graduate. The new rule would eliminate redshirting, as well as medical hardship waivers, which often grant players an additional year of eligibility. In other words, the move would simplify the NCAA eligibility clock.

"What we end up with is a bunch of paperwork and coaches calculating whether or not a freshman should get in a game or not get in a game," Pederson said. "If you have this (five-year eligibility), you would simply say, 'When you start college, you have five years to play,' and we wouldn't worry about all this other stuff. If you would happen to get hurt and not be able to play two of those years, that's the way it goes."

My hunch is that this proposal will suffer in its current form as it is directed solely at football. But what then would stop this from being a NCAA-wide rule revision that would impact the eligibility clock for all sports?