George: Transfers may take focus off education

College athletics have gone through significant changes in recent years, giving more freedom to student- athletes than ever before.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser is joining the fight to give even more freedom to the athletes by allowing them to transfer as often as they want without penalty.

Meanwhile, Colorado athletic director Rick George is among the many administrators hoping that won’t happen.

“I think we’re forgetting about the fact that education is primary,” George said. “Ninety- five to 98% of these student athletes are not going pro in their sport, so that degree and that education is extremely important. And when you transfer multiple times, are you going to have the progress towards degree credits, or have enough credits at an institution to get a degree? That’s concerning.”

In April 2021, the NCAA made a rule change to allow undergraduate studentathletes in all sports to transfer once without having to sit out a year of competition. One of the immediate results has been an even bigger flood of players to the transfer portal.

Earlier this month, Weiser and attorneys general from six other states sued the NCAA to challenge the rule, believing that student- athletes should be able to transfer as often as they want without needing a waiver to be eligible to compete.

“For me, the question becomes, why would you put a restriction on a second transfer?” Weiser said in an interview with Buffzone.

On Dec. 13, U. S. District Court judge John P. Bailey of the Northern District of West Virginia granted a 14day temporary restraining order ( TRO) to prevent the NCAA from enforcing its transfer rule.

That TRO has since been extended to the end of the 2023- 24 school year, granting immediate eligibility to all second- time transfers in the winter and spring sports. The NCAA also clarified this week that multitime transfers in fall sports will be eligible immediately in the fall of 2024 if they transfer during the 2023- 24 academic year.

“The big question that we’re gonna have to litigate or potentially settle is the longer term structure and whether or not students would have a right to a second transfer and potentially a third transfer under certain conditions,” Weiser said.

With the current NCAA rules, student- athletes can play immediately af ter a second transfer only if granted a waiver. According to Yahoo Sports, only about 25% of those waivers have been granted, however, and the process is confusing.

CU saw that first- hand with two football players this past season.

Running back Sy’veon Wilkerson was granted a waiver and played this past season despite being a third- time transfer. He started at Delaware, spent a semester at West Virginia and then played at Jackson State before coming to CU last summer.

However, offensive lineman Tyler Brown had his waiver denied.

Brown, who began his career at Louisiana before playing in 2022 at Jackson State, cited mental health concerns, but was denied and was only allowed to practice with the Buffs this season.

Weiser and his colleagues believe Wilkerson, Brown and all second- or third- time transfers should be eligible.

“( The waiver system) appears to be somewhat arbitrary, and it’s uncertain,” Weiser said. “For someone thinking about that second transfer, they’re playing Russian roulette, because they don’t know if they get the waiver until they’ve transferred. … There are, to my mind, real problems with this waiver system and that’s part of the reason for this litigation.”

Jere Morehead, the president at the University of Georgia and the chair of the NCAA Division I board of directors, told Yahoo that having unlimited transfers would be “inconsistent” with the goal of graduating athletes, and George agrees.

“Our focus is to get the student- athletes a degree,” he said. “A four- year degree to help set them up for the next 40 years is extremely important and invaluable.”

Weiser, however, said there are many cases of student- athletes succeeding in the classroom after transferring and that the broad restriction hurts some student- athletes.

“If there are reasons to believe a student’s transferring would impair their ability to graduate or they’re already in an academically difficult situation, those are circumstances that you might have reasonable restrictions, but here you have a categorical broad restriction that applies to every student,” he said. “That is not reasonable to me.”

George also expressed concern about the ability for teams to manage rosters year to year. There are thousands of student- athletes entering the transfer portal already. A policy of unlimited transfers could cause even more chaos.

“The team aspect does make a big difference, because you’d have roster sizes that you have to adhere to,” George said.

Weiser said “to my knowledge” the NCAA hasn’t presented the argument of roster management.

Overall, however, Weiser said the goal is to reform the rules as currently written.

“What the NCAA really needs to figure out is how to come up with a coherent and justified set of rules that truly can, where appropriate, protect athletes, and enable the sound administration of college sports,” he said. “This ( transfer) rule they have, I would argue is unjustified. It’s overly paternalistic and it begs the question as to why you wouldn’t adopt, let’s call it more narrowly tailored, or less restrictive rules.”