PITTSBURGH — Shane Lyons maintains that administrators made the right call.
Last August, the Division I Council recommended an extra year of eligibility for all fall athletes, a recommendation that was approved by the NCAA's board of governors. The decision was seen as a solution to the cloud of uncertainty that hung so heavily over the 2020 college football season.
"It was weighing on our student-athletes," Lyons, West Virginia's athletic director and the NCAA's Football Oversight Committee chair, told the Post-Gazette. "Am I going to get a complete season? Is it going to be abbreviated? Do I want to play? Do I not want to play? There were a lot of questions going into last fall about our sports and what they were going to look like and if we were even going to be able to play."
Over time, those concerns were eased. Players still opted out, but it was far from the mass exodus many feared. And despite 139 postponements and cancellations throughout the Football Bowl Subdivision, most teams played a satisfactory, if not surprising, number of games in the middle of a pandemic.
At the time, the promise of an extra year of eligibility created a relative sense of calm throughout locker rooms. And now as teams look to the fall with "super seniors" on the roster, not counting against the normal 85-scholarship limit, there's a feeling that fairness to the athletes is being provided by the schools with the means to do so. But decisions that strive to fix immediate problems often have far-reaching complications — complications that are already being felt by FBS coaches.
College football's super senior exemption is not expected to be extended beyond 2021, both Lyons and Pitt athletic director Heather Lyke told the Post-Gazette.
Super seniors in 2022, 2023 and 2024 will still have the opportunity to use their extra year of eligibility. However, unlike this fall, they'll count against their team's 85-scholarship limit, restricting the number of players who will be welcomed back.
Neither the Division I Council nor the NCAA board of directors have made an official ruling on the matter. But when the decision was made last August, it was generally understood that the super senior exemption was a one-year deal for 2021, despite some FBS coaches, including Pitt's Pat Narduzzi, expressing frustrations about how the rule has been presented by the powers that be.
"Back when this whole thing was announced in the summer, it was, 'Hey, everyone gets a free year from the NCAA. Merry Christmas,'" Narduzzi said in March. "You're giving them a year, but you're pretty much saying you have to have your scholarships cut back down to 85 (in 2022) which isn't fair to the kids and it's not fair to the coaches. They become the good guys saying that everyone has a free year, and then we become the bad guys saying, 'Hey, wait a second. You can't stay here.'"
"Originally, everyone part of the COVID year was granted a fifth year of eligibility, which you would think right off the bat that would mean you would have super seniors for five years, and it would just work its way through that process," Virginia coach Bronco Mendenhall said last month. "It doesn't seem like it's been well-thought out in terms of long-term solutions."
Scholarship crunch
The primary concern from coaches like Narduzzi and Mendenhall is an understandable one. They don't know exactly how many super seniors they'll have in 2022, which limits their ability to seek out talent in the upcoming recruiting class.
For example, Pitt is slated to have at least 95 players on scholarship in 2021 with 12 super seniors not counting against its limit. But next year, if the Panthers welcome back all 12 of their 2022 eligible super seniors (and they all count), Narduzzi will have only one spot available in the next recruiting class — a class with three verbal commits already. And with the dead period finally lifted after a year of virtual recruiting, allowing prospects to visit campus this summer, coaches will be hosting dozens of players without having a firm idea of how many they can take.
The counterpoint from ADs? Consistently taking on 100 scholarship players instead of 85 isn't sustainable from a financial or competitive perspective.
That stance hasn't stopped schools from trying to prolong the super senior exemption. According to Lyons, the Southeastern Conference crafted an informal proposal aimed to allow all athletes, from 2020 freshmen on up, to not count against the scholarship count during their senior seasons — creating, essentially, a five-year exemption.
"That changes your economics significantly," said Lyke, the ACC's representative on the Division I Council. "Scholarships are extremely expensive. That's not in the financial model for any of our schools."
When that didn't gain traction, there were conversations about a scaled down version of the SEC's initial plan. The Atlantic Coast Conference was among those involved. But even a push for a one-year add-on "has not garnered a lot of support" in the Division I Council, Lyke said.
Why, exactly? As Lyke mentioned, scholarships aren't cheap. The average FBS football scholarship costs approximately $36,000 per year, according to ScholarshipStats.com. Schools welcoming 10 or 12 more football players every year — in other words, spending up to $400,000 extra — is a tough sell for budget-minded administrators. Plus, schools would have to open this up to all sports, not just football.
Additionally, not all FBS coaches want a super senior extension. A lot of programs can't even welcome them back in 2021, let alone beyond that. Todd Berry, the executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, said that about half of FBS programs will be above 85 scholarships this fall.
"Then we've got half who don't support any changes because they already paid the price in last year's class," Berry said. "They've already had the impact of telling seniors they can't come back even though they want to come back. Or they already told a high school kid that now they don't have room because they're keeping a super senior."
As Berry noted, there have always been inequities between FBS programs on the field. But 2021 will be the first time in 50 years — since Johnny Majors fielded a recruiting class of 70-plus players and eventually won the 1976 national title — that one team with 100 scholarship players or more will face another with 85 or less. Any extension of that would, in theory, widen the gap between college football's haves and have nots.
Not to mention there's the new one-time transfer rule, which stands to not only empower players, but also benefit top programs willing to cherry pick talent from Group of Five or Division I-AA schools. Even middle of the pack Power Five programs will gain and lose players with the transfer portal creating a free-for-all.
Hurting high schoolers
Perhaps the party hurt most in all this are high school prospects. Transfers take roster spots, and beyond 2021, so will super seniors.
Narduzzi argued that super seniors counting against the scholarship limit in 2022 would lead to "sad faces" at the high school level. Berry added that more recruits who'd otherwise land in the FBS will end up going to Division I-AA or Division II programs. There, Berry believes, some prospects will play at unofficial "farm clubs" for Power Five programs. In other words, big-time schools will pull them out of the FCS level after a year or two as a transfer when space allows.
These are wild times in college football, no doubt. And extending the super senior exemption could once again calm things down in football offices across the sport.
"But at some point, we have to cut it off," Lyke said. Even if that "some point" is sooner than some coaches would have hoped.
"Us as coaches are going to have to decide who gets that extra year," Boston College coach Jeff Hafley told the Post-Gazette. "Some of these guys might be done playing football. Some might decide to head to the NFL. Some might decide to go get jobs. Those are conversations we'll have to have one-on-one with our players and figure it out. But if we're just honest with guys up front, that's all we can do."
"I don't want to say they're unintended consequences, because we knew the consequences going into it ..." Lyons added. "A coach's role is managing a roster. ... It's whether they want to allow a student-athlete to return for an additional year or do they recruit and bring somebody in from the high school ranks. That's going to be their roster management. And that's where some are a little bit frustrated that now that's in their court. They have to make those decisions."
