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What an extra year of eligibility means for Mizzou

A lot about Missouri’s 2020 college football season will be unusual. Never before has a team played 10 SEC opponents in a single year. Never in recent memory has the season kicked off in late September. And not in the last 100 years have some teams played while others skipped the season entirely.

We can now add one more oddity to the list (provided the games actually get played, of course). The NCAA announced Friday that it would grant a blanket waiver to all fall sports athletes allowing them to retain a year of eligibility, regardless of how many games they play. That means that Missouri could complete its entire 10-game schedule, or more, and seniors like Larry Rountree III could return in 2021. First-year players could play more than four games and remain freshmen without using a redshirt.

On the surface, the decision might not make much sense, especially for schools like Missouri that are still planning to play this fall. The reasoning, apparently, was to reassure athletes who were considering opting out of the 2020 season over concerns that COVID-19 outbreaks could curtail the season after just a few games.

But as Tigers head coach Eliah Drinkwitz said to reporters Tuesday, opinions on the decision don’t much matter at this point. The ruling has been finalized. Now, the question is how the change could impact Missouri. As has become a common refrain in 2020, no one knows for sure, but there could be impacts both to the football team and the athletics department as a whole.

Missouri athletics director Jim Sterk acknowledged that the NCAA's decision to grant all fall sports athletes an extra year of eligibility will increase costs for the athletics department..
Missouri athletics director Jim Sterk acknowledged that the NCAA's decision to grant all fall sports athletes an extra year of eligibility will increase costs for the athletics department.. (Jordan Kodner)
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The most obvious consequence of the waiver is that rosters will be significantly larger in 2021. As part of its decision, the NCAA abolished the scholarship cap for fall sports teams next year. Football teams are typically limited to 85 scholarship players, although Missouri is down to 81 this season as a result of NCAA sanctions. It’s unlikely, but if the Tigers add 25 new scholarship players to the roster during the offseason, the maximum allowed, and every current player returns, they could have as many as 110 scholarship players on the team a year from now.

That immediately begs the question: Can schools afford to field such large teams? Athletics director Jim Sterk has said that Missouri is expecting a roughly 20 percent loss in revenue for the 2021 fiscal year, even if the current football schedule gets played. Other schools could be facing significantly steeper budget cuts — Ohio State is reportedly bracing for a $130 million loss in revenue.

Now, on top of making up for those losses, Missouri’s athletics department will have to reimburse the university for the additional scholarships in football, volleyball, soccer and men’s and women’s cross country next season. Missouri’s website estimates the cost of attendance as more than $24,000 for in-state students and about $41,000 for out-of-state residents.

Speaking to reporters Monday, Sterk said there’s still too many unknowns to project how expensive covering those additional scholarships could be — namely, how many seniors opt to return — but it will certainly raise costs. For reference, the NCAA issued a similar waiver for spring sports athletes after their seasons were cut short in March, and 12 of the 21 seniors opted to take advantage of the additional season. It should also be noted that, unless the NCAA plans to forbid schools from recruiting high school players in the 2022 class, scholarship limits will need to continue to remain above 85 for at least a couple years after the 2021 season.

“As far as the student-athletes, they're going to look at how this year goes, I think, before they probably decide on what they're doing for next year,” Sterk said. “If it's satisfying, if they're a senior and they have job opportunities or they're moving on, those things are happening. And so we don't have a number yet, and I don't know what that number is. But it is an increased expense. I'm not sure what it will be at this point.”

Assuming Missouri can find the money to support more scholarship athletes, the next question becomes, how does this impact the football team, both this year and in the future?

At least immediately, Drinkwitz doesn’t anticipate many changes. While the decision could, in theory, open the door for additional first-year players to see the field in more than four games, Drinkwitz noted that it’s not like the Tigers are going to suddenly start playing 100 players per game. The team is limited in the number of players it can travel to road contests and the number who can dress for home games. Plus, Drinkwitz wasn’t planning on redshirting many players this season to begin with.

“Obviously there's no such thing as a redshirt, but there's a travel squad, so you're still gonna have to make the travel squad, and then home games we can only play 80 people,” Drinkwitz explained. “I mean, we weren’t planning on redshirting very many people. We’ve got 81 scholarships because the NCAA felt like that was what’s best for Mizzou, along with about nine other penalties.”

The biggest changes are likely to come on the recruiting trail. In particular, look for the already bustling transfer market to overflow. As rosters expand and competition for playing time increases, more players than ever will likely seek opportunities elsewhere, and few (if any) will have to sit out a season.

Casey Woods, Missouri’s tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator, noted that the NCAA’s decision will create an entire additional class of players who can graduate with eligibility remaining, thus allowing them to change schools without having to sit out a season. Non-graduates will likely be immediately eligible, as well; the NCAA is expected to pass a one-time transfer waiver prior to the 2021-22 academic year. Even if for some reason that doesn’t go into effect before next fall, the NCAA has proven lenient in granting immediate-eligibility waivers, and it would be easy for a player to make the case that he was pushed out by the previous coaching staff.

“Over the course of the next three or four years, it's going to create four classes of guys that are accelerated in school,” Woods said. “So you're gonna have more graduates earlier in their eligibility, ready to go. So that's something that we've got to pay attention to and evaluate. If all of a sudden now I've got a graduate transfer that's got three years to play, maybe, because he already redshirted and played two, but now he's got three, just the way that it worked out this year, or something, ... how does that fit into the roster?”

As a result, look for Missouri to keep at least a few spots among the 25 new players it can sign each offseason open for transfers. The staff has already shown a willingness to turn to the transfer portal for immediately-eligible options, adding four graduate transfers this offseason: wide receivers Damon Hazelton and Keke Chism, offensive lineman Michael Maietti and punter Grant McKinniss. Now, it could be possible to find an experienced college player who can help right away without serving as a one-year Band-Aid. That could translate into the staff being a bit more selective on the high school recruiting trail.

In the end, neither Drinkwitz nor Woods believes an extra year of eligibility for fall sports athletes will indelibly alter the football landscape. Woods pointed out that players who have spent three years in college will still be able to declare for the NFL Draft, and of those that would have been seniors this season who opt not to go the professional route, few are likely good enough to make an impact in a fifth season.

“I don't think that the direct impact will be as widespread as maybe people fear from the standpoint that the NFL is still gonna have a draft, so good enough players are gonna go play the NFL,” he said.

But the waiver adds to the already lengthy list of new challenges coaches and athletics directors have to negotiate as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Like many of the others, this one will impact college football for at least a few years beyond 2020.

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