Welcome to the wild west college sports. According to sources that The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach spoke to, the NCAA’s Division I Council has approved a one-time transfer exception for all sports. This means all athletes will be able to transfer one time without sitting out a year, or having to have a waiver approved.
The announcement of the rule change will reportedly not happen until the D1 Council finishes up its meetings on Thursday, but it is expected that it will be in place as early as the 2021-2022 academic year, meaning we’ll be looking at the potential of things getting crazy this fall and beyond.
It must be noted that any athlete that attempts to transfer again after the one-time exemption will have to still sit out a year without a waiver, just like in previous years.
Division I* Council
— Nicole Auerbach 😷 (@NicoleAuerbach) April 14, 2021
There are clearly a ton of logistics to still work through pending the official announcement, but according to Auerbach, there will be a deadline of May 1 for fall and winter athletes, and July 1 for spring participants. For this year only, a waiver has been approved for all transferring athletes to use a July 1 notification deadline for immediate eligibility for the 2021-22 academic year according to sources.
We’ll have more on this as information is made available.
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