Big Ten Considering Ineligibility for Freshman

Nebraska athletic director Shawn Eichorst, in step with other Big Ten administrators, supports a discussion in college athletics to bolster academics, though he's not ready to endorse freshmen ineligibility.


The Big Ten issued a statement Tuesday after its annual joint meetings in Chicago, confirming its circulation of the "White Paper," a memo that details a potential year of readiness that would keep true freshmen from participating in competition.

The league, at this point, supports only a dialogue on the topic and not a legislative proposal.

"More than anything," Eichorst said, "I give the Big Ten a lot of credit for at least stepping up and saying, 'Let's talk about it.' Why not? I've had conversations with people who thought autonomy was never going to happen.

"I'm really interested in something that will help us improve what it is we're doing from an academic perspective."
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What makes no sense is that it is only for FB and men's basketball. Why do those players need a "year of adjustment" when a volleyball player doesn't?

 
And how would not playing in games for a exactly year help them academically? They would presumably still be spending 20+ hours a week at practice/film/weight training. The only think that I can think of is they would not be travelling to road games, so they would be on campus more.

 
Great article by Stew Mandel. The commissioners want it, but no one can state why. Some parts:

In conversations since last week with numerous administrators around the country, I've learned that a surprising number of influential figures are truly interested in exploring the so-called Year of Readiness concept. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany has been quietly planting the seeds for months, but Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, for one, is making sure his conference takes the matter seriously. The Pac-12's Larry Scott likely will as well.

What stood out most, though, is that no two people had the same explanation as to why they're taking the ineligibility idea seriously. They're all concerned ... about something, and there's a collective appetite in exploring ... well, something.
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What no one has yet articulated, however, is why they believe a de facto redshirt year would make a tangible difference in athletes' academic lives. Do current redshirt freshman football players perform better in the classroom than their counterparts that dress out on Saturdays? Would the tiny fraction of academically disinterested basketball players who'd choose the D-league instead cause a notable improvement in teams' graduation rates?

"It's backwards," one Power 5 athletic director said. "Usually their better grades are freshman year because they're entry-level classes. If a kid struggles academically, it's usually going to be his junior and senior seasons."
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And yet Delany is also more responsible than any other college athletics figure of the past 30 years in commercializing those sports. He annexed Penn State in the early '90s, touching off the first massive TV-driven realignment wave. He started the influential and money-printing Big Ten Network. He touched off Realignment Mania II five years ago when the league began hunting for a 12th member that eventually became Nebraska, and then he took it to another degree with his conference's East Coast push.

You know what would really help Rutgers' basketball players focus on academics? Not having to travel to Iowa City in the middle of the week for a conference game, as they did last week.

But Delany is also a well-heeled navigator of the NCAA policy-making maze. He does not launch massive initiatives without a realistic end game. And deep down he surely knows the road he's undertaking will not end with a national vote for the restoration of freshman ineligibility at next January's convention.

The SEC, for one, will never go for it. Not as long as Calipari's churning out national title contenders full of freshmen and football powers like Alabama and LSU are luring five-stars with the promise of a "three-year plan" to get to the NFL. Meanwhile, most of the other 27 Division I conferences have little incentive to support such a move because most of them aren't getting confused for pseudo-professional leagues. Even if Delany could get the majority of his peers on board, surely he realizes the opposition he'd run into trying to impose such a radical restriction on just those two sports.

"It would be really hard to defend" singling out football and men's basketball, said one AD. "If [the reason is] academic preparedness, I've got some football players who come here superbly prepared to handle both. If it's something to do with their status as revenue sports, that doesn't make any sense."

All of which has led to dismissive reactions like that of Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, who recently said of freshman ineligibility: "It's something that will never happen, and I don't know why people are talking about it."

Realistically, Delany's true agenda is not to make freshmen ineligible. But he's trying to accomplish something just by getting the rest of the industry to talk about it.

Maybe he's hoping to pressure the NBA into changing its age minimum and thus ridding college basketball of Calipari's coveted one-and-dones. But that seems an awfully convoluted way of going about it.

Maybe he's trying to focus more attention on disparities in admissions standards and help negate an issue that's often put his members at a disadvantage in football. Former Wisconsin coach Gary Andersen recently said he left for Oregon State in large part over frustrations about the Badgers' admissions policies.

Whatever the case, he's ensured the freshman issue will be high on the conversation list at other conference's annual meetings this spring. Their first order of business should be a discussion about why they're discussing this.
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Mavric said:
Nebraska athletic director Shawn Eichorst, in step with other Big Ten administrators, supports a discussion in college athletics to bolster academics, though he's not ready to endorse freshmen ineligibility.


The Big Ten issued a statement Tuesday after its annual joint meetings in Chicago, confirming its circulation of the "White Paper," a memo that details a potential year of readiness that would keep true freshmen from participating in competition.

The league, at this point, supports only a dialogue on the topic and not a legislative proposal.

"More than anything," Eichorst said, "I give the Big Ten a lot of credit for at least stepping up and saying, 'Let's talk about it.' Why not? I've had conversations with people who thought autonomy was never going to happen.

"I'm really interested in something that will help us improve what it is we're doing from an academic perspective."
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Link
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If they want to play the academics game how about they put a salary cap on what staff can be paid to make sure that as much money as possible stays in funds that are set aside for students.

 
Very interesting.

If there is a push across the nation on this, then I probably would be for it. I was glad to see him say the Big 10 would not do this on their own.

 
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What if a freshman is your best player?

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Let 'em play!

 
Blackshirt96 said:
I would be for it if the brought back the Freshman/JV program. Let them play Friday nights against other FR/JV teams or against D2 or D3 Schools. More games & more experience for underclassman/walk-ons or guys just buried on the depth chart. You could limit their practice time a little more & give them more push towards their school work.

It might hurt with some of the top guys who want to play now, but you will make up for it with the guys who know they need a year to develop & with walk-ons who want to prove they desirve a scholarship.
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Yes, bring back the freshman/JV program it would good for development for the players.

 
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