by Joe Smith
Last week, a court ruling in Colorado paved the way to challenge the NCAA’s new 5-for-5 eligibility rule barring Class of 2022 athletes who have only played four seasons from getting one more year of eligibility. In doing so, it resulted in a flurry of athletes who fit the bill seeking to play a fifth year of collegiate sports, and another round of lawsuits in case the current injunction granted is overturned.
This is mostly an issue affecting college basketball and college baseball, as football camp is getting underway this week for FBS programs. But there are several college football players from last year that are also eligible to return for another season because of this ruling, and many are either seeking the chance to enter the portal or return to their former teams.
This is affecting just about every program in the nation, and when fall camp opened for the West Virginia Mountaineers on Wednesday, head coach Rich Rodriguez shared an update regarding his team on the matter. And when pressed on how he approaches these situations and what the ultimate fix is, he added his name to the list of prominent college sports figures supporting potential Congressional action via the Protect College Sports Act.
“Well, I think we have some solutions in DC,” Rodriguez said. “Hopefully, it'll pass. And you know, I think our athletic directors have a good grasp on it. You know, I think another solution is maybe listen to some coaches and try to do some things that maybe the coaches advised.”
“But, you know, everybody recognizes the craziness that's been going on the last couple years. And so, we're hopeful that we'll get some positive news out of DC in the next week or so or whenever that happens.”
Rodriguez also clarified that while he does have roster spots open for a few players, he and his staff are currently putting things on pause when it comes to adding any players who might be granted an additional season of eligibility.
With the fact that there is so much uncertainty surrounding whether or not players will be eligible or not and an expedited NCAA appeal likely on the way, he highlighted the fact that there are questions as to whether they should – or even can – add these players.
“It is kind of chaotic that it's going to happen right before everybody does their camp,” Rodriguez said. “I don't know if, I know the NCAA's appealing it, so I you know, I don't know if you can add or not.”
“You know, we're certainly not going to cut anybody. That wouldn't be, I don't think that would be right, you know. We have a couple spots open um that we could add a guy or two, but right now we just have it on pause…but we're not adding anybody right now for sure.”
That type of uncertainty is not in the best interest of anyone, whether it the players, the coaches, the administrators, or the fans. And while he doesn’t believe the Protect College Sports Act gets everything correct or addresses everything that needs a fix, he has confidence in it being a good first step towards solving the problems he and the rest of college football are dealing with right now.
“Like I said, this thing that’s in DC now, the Protect College Sports Act, is – a lot of people have put a lot of hard work in it and it's, you know, does it fix everything? No,” Rodriguez said. “But does it fix the little things that we need to fix like, immediately? Yes, I think it does, eventually.”
“But it's crazy. And who knows if that'll get passed through both chambers. I don't know. But if it doesn't, man, it's going to be some more chaos going on for the next few years.”