College Football SMQ: Should non-drafted players regain college eligibility?

Declaring for the NFL Draft eliminates a player’s college eligibility. Here’s why players should be allowed back on college teams if they go undrafted.

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The 2018 NFL Draft is almost upon us, with the three-day event taking place next weekend. This year’s pool of pro prospects hopes to have their lives changed permanently by one of the 32 teams in the league.

NFL rules stipulate a player must be three years removed from high school to declare for the NFL Draft. What that means is talented juniors have the option of declaring early for the pool of draft candidates.

This year, for the first time in the history of the draft, more than 100 players elected to declare early. In total, 106 juniors, redshirt juniors, and redshirt sophomores chose to forgo their final season of eligibility for a shot at a pro contract in the 2018 NFL Draft.

Thanks to the circular logic of amateurism, those 106 players forfeited one more year on scholarship to chase an uncertain dream with no guarantees. Every collegiate star must make a choice if he is good enough to be considered a viable prospect.

Why does it have to be this way, though? What rational basis is there for automatically disqualifying a player from returning to the college game? In this week’s Sunday Morning Quarterback, let’s look at why the NCAA and its members should welcome back players who fail to land one of the 256 highly coveted golden tickets onto an NFL roster.

There is no justification for such a draconian interpretation of amateurism

The NCAA loves to boast about how most of its athletes will go professional in something other than sports. If the organization truly cared about getting as many people educated and graduated as possible, it would take a long look at its eligibility standards as they pertain to professional sports drafts.

As it now stands, the onus is on a player to individually declare whether or not he wishes to stay eligible or put himself on the hiring block at the mercy of the 32 NFL franchises. Each young man must make this decision without the counsel of an agent. Merely seeking out the guidance of an expert would put a player’s eligibility at risk.

The grounds for the status quo stem from the outdated concept of amateurism. Intercollegiate sports originated during a period when amateurism was a commonplace ethos. When college football was still a diversion instead of a multibillion-dollar industry, amateurism buttressed by scholarships was a fair concept. Now it is just a cruel way of putting the risks on the player while institutionalizing the profits.

In the 21st century, amateurism has outlived its usefulness

As written, college eligibility rules pass the responsibility from institution to player. Amateurism concentrates profits for universities with the coaches each hires and on elaborate facilities. The labor force producing the content gets a scholarship that may or may not cover the cost of attendance.

Players benefit during their college days from this financial outlay on trainers and institutional support. But that support dries up as soon as a player declares for the NFL Draft. Merely putting one’s name into the pool of draft hopefuls is enough for schools to effectively wash their hands of draft-declared athletes.

The ostensible logic behind this decision is that teams need to know how many players to target on National Signing Day. Even so, there is no reason why players couldn’t be welcomed back into the fold.

How could this be managed in terms of scholarship limits?

One thing that could throw a wrench into this idea is the NCAA’s hard rule on scholarship limits. Currently, no FBS school can give out more than 85 full scholarships to football players. This is not law, however. All it would take is a tweak to the NCAA bylaws to create a more just system for student-athletes.

This could be managed several ways. One would be to create a second scholarship limit for undrafted players. Each school could welcome back up to a certain number of undrafted players each season. The drawback of this plan, though, is that it still artificially restricts access to scholarship opportunities for the athletes.

Ultimately, if one’s concern is what is best for student-athletes, then restricting opportunity is the last resort. If the NCAA allowed schools to welcome back every early enrollee that was not selected in the NFL Draft, they could require that teams designate only 85 active players. The rest would be redshirted.

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This scenario allows for student-athletes to fulfill at the very least on the first part of that compound descriptor. And if the NCAA genuinely cared about its rhetoric about going pro outside of sports, it would jump at this public relations opportunity.