USF football and all sports will feel a big impact under new NCAA eligibility rule

The new rule passed by the NCAA D-1 Cabinet isn't a return to the good old days where players mostly finished at the schools where they started, but it's a big improvement over what college football has become in recent years.

Players will now have five years of eligibility -- period. With very few exceptions, they can play all five years between the ages of 19 and 24 if they want, but that's it. No injury waivers, redshirt seasons, or extentions.

Had that rule been effect last year, quarterbacks Carson Beck of Miami and Heisman runner-up Diego Pavia of Vanderbilt would not have been eligible.

USF has three players -- WR Jaden Alexis, OL Thomas Shrader, OL Caleb Cook -- who would be ineligible this season under the new rules. Every other FBS team is likely in the same boat.

The Bulls will have one of the NCAA's most experienced teams heading into this season. Because of new head coach Brian Hartline's heavy use of the Transfer Portal, the Bulls rank eighth in the NCAA in the number of returning snaps from last year, according to a post on 247Sports.com.

Hartline has signaled more of a reliance on prep recruiting going forward, even though Indiana's reliance on veteran transfers last year became the chic thing to copy after the Hoosiers won the natty. Now, it gets trickier.

"With these changes, the Cabinet has taken decisive action for the benefit of student-athletes and the system of NCAA Division I athletics," said Josh Whitman, athletics director at Illinois and chair of the Cabinet.

"For many student-athletes who enroll in college immediately after high school, these changes will result in the opportunity to potentially compete for an additional season in their chosen sport. For campus officials and coaches, this change provides rules that are simpler to administer and easier to predict for roster management decisions."

Now, a player's eligibility clock will start when he or she steps foot on their college campus. There's nothing in the new regulation that affects the portal, but coaches and players will have some tricky things to manage before the changes are fully implemented for 2027.

Of course, there are the inevitable legal challenges. The main one seems to be allowing players who exhaust their eligibility this year under the old system to get a fifth year in 2027 when the new rule takes effect. In most cases this seems to be about allowing the player an extra year of NIL money because they likely wouldn't advance to professional sports.

Another possible trip wire is the 19-to-24 age requirement. It's not unusual to see players repeating a year in middle school or high school to be better prepared physically for the challenge of college ball. That might mean they don't enter college until they are 20 years old. The rule as written now would take away one year where they could play in college.

But I think the good in these changes outweighs the potential bad. It has the potential to make college sports -- not just football, either -- look the way they are supposed to look. Yes, the COVID 19 pandemic messed a lot of things in college athletics, and the adoption of NIL and direct payments to athletes amplified the changing era.

However, it's time to bring some order back to the system. Allowing a player five years of unfettered eligibility allows for the possibility of injury curtailing part of that journey. Players will still be able to transfer and get paid.

College sports is never going back to what it was. But where it was headed was unsustainable and needed to be changed.

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