Over the years, the NCAA and its student-athletes have held different opinions about the NCAA’s rules. Besides wanting to be paid for their likeness, the latest disagreement student-athletes have with the athletic association is the rule (Article 12) that dictates when an underclassmen who declares for his sport’s draft is ineligible to play at the collegiate level.
The sports that have been impacted the most by these rules are football and basketball. For years, underclassmen who met the requirements to relinquish the rest of their college eligibility to enter the NBA or NFL Draft had to make an ultimatum: should they stay in school or try to make a profession in the sport they play (based on hearsay and no concrete information)? As a result, some players made the gamble and were drafted and some weren’t (here, you can find a list of 2015’s undrafted NFL & NBA underclassmen). In the past, these rules have affected players who are physically & mentally ready for the next level-and players who provide for their families-from knowing where they stand in professional organizations’ eyes. Essentially, the rules are preventing athletes from making the best decision for themselves, or in some instances leaving a window open for athletes to get hurt.
Underclassmen college basketball and football players could only enter their names into their respective sport’s draft once without jeopardizing their eligibility. In 2015, underclassmen college basketball players had from the end of the NCAAM’s basketball season (after the 2015 Division-1 Men’s Basketball National Championship on April 6) to April 16, to withdraw their name from the NBA Draft on June 25 (10 days). This year, underclassmen college football players had to declare for the NFL Draft by January 18, but only had 72 hours to withdraw. In 2015, the deadline to declare was January 15. Combine the deadlines together—underclassmen were given less than two weeks to gather feedback and information about their stock before they had to make a life-altering decision. If an athlete changed his mind and wanted to go back to school, but missed the withdrawal deadline for either basketball or football: the athlete lost his eligibility to play his sport at an inter collegiate level (and if on scholarship free education).
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Data collected from the NCAA on football & basketball; Infographic created by Shaheem Sutherland using Timeline JS
However, earlier this year, on Friday, March 18, 2016, the NCAA adopted a new proposal that impacts the underclassmen of college basketball. According to the NCAA, “the proposal allows underclassmen to participate in activities surrounding the NBA Draft Combine and the NBA Draft such as: entering the NBA Draft provided they are not drafted and declare their intention to resume intercollegiate participation by May 25th; participating in the NBA Draft Combine in May; and having a private 48-hour tryout with an NBA team.”
The new proposal created a playing field that the NCAA and some of its student-athletes are happy with. However, the eligibility rules for college football remain the same. There is a theory mentioned in an article written by Michael Weinreb that the three-year rule created by the NFL gives an athlete enough time to become physically ready for the pros. In some cases, this three-year rule has impacted several players who are (or were thought to be) deemed NFL-ready: Marcus Lattimore, Jadeveon Clowney, and Leonard Fournette. Due to these rules, underclassmen college football players portrayed as NFL-ready are not given the right to “test the waters” and find out where they would place in the draft—at least not without becoming ineligible.
A couple court cases show that college football players have been dealing with the consequences enforced by the NCAA regarding declaring for the NFL Draft since 1990. In two cases, Banks v. National Collegiate Athletic Ass’n., No. S90-394 and Gaines v. National Collegiate Athletic Ass’n., No. 3:90-0773, it stated that both plaintiffs Braxston Lee Banks and Bradford L. Gaines were ruled ineligible by the NCAA when they declared for the NFL Draft due to the NCAA’s “no draft rule”.
In the 2016 NFL Draft there was ninety-six underclassmen. Of the ninety-six players, thirty went undrafted. Those thirty underclassmen were faced with several options: join a team as a free agent, get invited to a team’s try-out, get a job that doesn’t consist of playing football, or go back to school. NFL Football Operations stated, “875 (.08%) players will sign an NFL contract and 300 (.03%) players will make an NFL roster.” Without the ability to go back to school to improve their craft once the underclassmen see where they stand at the pro level, several players lose the privilege to receive a free education-and the ability to re-do the process hoping to get drafted into the NFL. As stated by the NFL, “Players are draft-eligible only in the year after the end of their college eligibility.”