This decision has been a little under the radar, but raising the standards from 2.0 to 2.3 or you get a mandated academic redshirt is a big deal, especially for those schools that ship a lot of juniors to the NFL. They'll be even more of an emphasis now on academics with recruits. This may impact the SEC more than the other conferences as most of the SEC schools float right at the minimum standard, although there are plenty of other schools that do the same not in the SEC. Interesting stuff. Thoughts?
Article:
In the first week of the 2015 college football season, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Clemson, Florida State and USC played a combined 86 true freshmen in their opening games. A number of high-profile true freshman, including UCLA's Josh Rosen and BYU's Tanner Mangum. made highlight reels from coast to coast.
First-year players seeing the field is a trend that has been rising the past few years as high school prospects are becoming better prepared to play at the college level than year’s past.
It’s also a trend that could start to slow down the next few seasons as the NCAA will put new academic standards into effect starting next season.
The Division I board of directors adopted the new initial eligibility standards in October 2011, initially planning to implement the new standards in August 2015. To give prospects a fair chance to succeed under the new rules, the board eventually delayed the effective date to August 2016.
As it currently stands, college-bound student athletes have to meet a minimum core GPA of 2.0, along with a sliding scale for ACT and SAT scores, to be eligible. Under the new rules, any college-bound student athlete with a core GPA below a 2.3 will automatically have to take an academic redshirt for their first season on campus.
That academic redshirt counts as the redshirt year, so the player will have five years to play four years, the same impact on a player’s eligibility as a normal redshirt.
That might not seem like much of a change, but the kicker is that the requirements can only be filled using core courses such as English, math and science. A prospect can’t try to raise the core GPA with gym or basket weaving, so it could make a difference in the initial eligibility of some prospects.
“It won’t affect schools with higher academic standards anyway,” one ACC assistant told me, “but the teams who only need a 2.0 to get in for athletes will have trouble with depth because guys will be in the program, but can’t make any impact until their second season.
“Obviously there are more positives for guys off the field, but on the field it could hurt teams who need bodies to play on special teams or specific packages.”
Another reason the new standards might make an impact is because the prospective student-athletes won’t be able to cram core classes in at the end of their high school career or try to make up grades past a certain point. Of the 16 core courses required for eligibility, 10 must be completed before the student’s seventh semester in high school and the grades for those courses will be “locked in” at the start of the seventh semester and cannot be repeated.
The NCAA has been diligent in trying to spread the word about the new requirements and their impact. From educating external parties to reaching out to coaching associations and making outbound phone calls and presentations to high schools, the NCAA has made a big effort to ensure everyone is prepared for the change.
According to the NCAA, the organization has tracked awareness of the new standards with high school contacts nationwide since 2012. The group reports an increase in awareness from 55 percent to 88 percent over the past three years.
Those numbers could help some prospects stay academically eligible that first year, but if they weren’t aware of the standards early on in their high school careers, it very well could be too late.
Prospects often don’t know they will be sought after football players early on in high school, and past recruits have said they didn’t focus on academics until they realized they had an opportunity to play at the next level.
Stanford is a school that won’t be impacted by the new requirements, because their academic standards already exceed the NCAA minimums, but defensive coordinator Lance Anderson says he does see some issues for incoming college prospects.
“I think there could be somewhat of an impact,” Anderson said. “Sometimes, until it happens, kids have dug themselves such a hole that they can’t recover. The thing you have to understand is if that GPA is down a little bit, just because you have one good semester, that can’t offset what you’ve done the previous years. I think high school coaches [and] counselors will be more on top of that and have kids better prepared after this season, but this first year in place it definitely could have an impact.”
The scenario Anderson portrays is partially why these changes were made in the first place. The NCAA states that the new eligibility standards “were adopted primarily to address prospects who were accumulating high numbers of credits during a single high school year/semester in order to meet NCAA initial eligibility standards,” according to a spokesperson.
Stanford isn’t a school that will be directly impacted with who it targets, but Anderson recognizes the new requirements might increase the number of teams targeting the same type of high-academic prospect as the Cardinal coaches. The ability to get a player on the field sooner will become a bigger part of some programs’ evaluations.
“I wonder if it could impact us that maybe some of the kids who are better students are going to be more highly recruited,” Anderson said. “They might get a few more scholarship offers. We may have a little more competition for the kids we recruit, because those higher academic kids might have a few more offers.”
The new rules won’t deny prospects who meet the current initial eligibility requirements an opportunity at college as the prospect will be able to receive a scholarship and practice with the team if a 2.0 GPA is met.
It’s unclear how many 2016 recruits will be impacted by the new rules and who will be required to take an academic scholarship their first season, but the number of true freshmen taking the field opening week next August will tell the story.
Article:
In the first week of the 2015 college football season, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Clemson, Florida State and USC played a combined 86 true freshmen in their opening games. A number of high-profile true freshman, including UCLA's Josh Rosen and BYU's Tanner Mangum. made highlight reels from coast to coast.
First-year players seeing the field is a trend that has been rising the past few years as high school prospects are becoming better prepared to play at the college level than year’s past.
It’s also a trend that could start to slow down the next few seasons as the NCAA will put new academic standards into effect starting next season.
The Division I board of directors adopted the new initial eligibility standards in October 2011, initially planning to implement the new standards in August 2015. To give prospects a fair chance to succeed under the new rules, the board eventually delayed the effective date to August 2016.
As it currently stands, college-bound student athletes have to meet a minimum core GPA of 2.0, along with a sliding scale for ACT and SAT scores, to be eligible. Under the new rules, any college-bound student athlete with a core GPA below a 2.3 will automatically have to take an academic redshirt for their first season on campus.
That academic redshirt counts as the redshirt year, so the player will have five years to play four years, the same impact on a player’s eligibility as a normal redshirt.
That might not seem like much of a change, but the kicker is that the requirements can only be filled using core courses such as English, math and science. A prospect can’t try to raise the core GPA with gym or basket weaving, so it could make a difference in the initial eligibility of some prospects.
“It won’t affect schools with higher academic standards anyway,” one ACC assistant told me, “but the teams who only need a 2.0 to get in for athletes will have trouble with depth because guys will be in the program, but can’t make any impact until their second season.
“Obviously there are more positives for guys off the field, but on the field it could hurt teams who need bodies to play on special teams or specific packages.”
Another reason the new standards might make an impact is because the prospective student-athletes won’t be able to cram core classes in at the end of their high school career or try to make up grades past a certain point. Of the 16 core courses required for eligibility, 10 must be completed before the student’s seventh semester in high school and the grades for those courses will be “locked in” at the start of the seventh semester and cannot be repeated.
The NCAA has been diligent in trying to spread the word about the new requirements and their impact. From educating external parties to reaching out to coaching associations and making outbound phone calls and presentations to high schools, the NCAA has made a big effort to ensure everyone is prepared for the change.
According to the NCAA, the organization has tracked awareness of the new standards with high school contacts nationwide since 2012. The group reports an increase in awareness from 55 percent to 88 percent over the past three years.
Those numbers could help some prospects stay academically eligible that first year, but if they weren’t aware of the standards early on in their high school careers, it very well could be too late.
Prospects often don’t know they will be sought after football players early on in high school, and past recruits have said they didn’t focus on academics until they realized they had an opportunity to play at the next level.
Stanford is a school that won’t be impacted by the new requirements, because their academic standards already exceed the NCAA minimums, but defensive coordinator Lance Anderson says he does see some issues for incoming college prospects.
“I think there could be somewhat of an impact,” Anderson said. “Sometimes, until it happens, kids have dug themselves such a hole that they can’t recover. The thing you have to understand is if that GPA is down a little bit, just because you have one good semester, that can’t offset what you’ve done the previous years. I think high school coaches [and] counselors will be more on top of that and have kids better prepared after this season, but this first year in place it definitely could have an impact.”
The scenario Anderson portrays is partially why these changes were made in the first place. The NCAA states that the new eligibility standards “were adopted primarily to address prospects who were accumulating high numbers of credits during a single high school year/semester in order to meet NCAA initial eligibility standards,” according to a spokesperson.
Stanford isn’t a school that will be directly impacted with who it targets, but Anderson recognizes the new requirements might increase the number of teams targeting the same type of high-academic prospect as the Cardinal coaches. The ability to get a player on the field sooner will become a bigger part of some programs’ evaluations.
“I wonder if it could impact us that maybe some of the kids who are better students are going to be more highly recruited,” Anderson said. “They might get a few more scholarship offers. We may have a little more competition for the kids we recruit, because those higher academic kids might have a few more offers.”
The new rules won’t deny prospects who meet the current initial eligibility requirements an opportunity at college as the prospect will be able to receive a scholarship and practice with the team if a 2.0 GPA is met.
It’s unclear how many 2016 recruits will be impacted by the new rules and who will be required to take an academic scholarship their first season, but the number of true freshmen taking the field opening week next August will tell the story.
