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New Eligibility Rules for Freshmen - Introducing the "Academic Redshirt"

Buffnik

Real name isn't Nik
Club Member
Junta Member
Non-premium content from the Pitt Rivals site. Very detailed and does an excellent job of explaining what is changing.

I posted this in Football Recruiting, but it will affect all sports. As mentioned in the article, it could be a major issue for the basketball players who barely qualify and expect to be one and done for the NBA. Why sit out a year for an academic redshirt?

From the article:

Under the new system, the NCAA will add a second sliding scale, which has higher requirements (the core GPA is .45 points higher than on the first scale). The first sliding scale is the same as the current scale, but a PSA who meets the requirements on that scale is only eligible for financial aid and practice in his or her first year. In order to participate in competition, the PSA must meet the requirements of the second sliding scale.

For example, a PSA with a core GPA of 2.30 and an SAT score of 900 would be eligible to receive financial aid and practice in his or her first year but not participate in competition; in order to participate in competition, that PSA with a 2.30 GPA would need an SAT score of at least 1080. (Note: SAT scores are math and critical reading only).

The NCAA has also set 2.30 as the minimum core GPA for a PSA to be eligible for competition. On the current scale, a core GPA of 2.00 is the baseline for eligibility, but on the new scale, a PSA with that core GPA would not be eligible to compete in his or first year. Instead, he or she would have to take an academic redshirt (provided the SAT or ACT score meets the requirements) and then meet college academic eligibility standards as a freshman.


http://pittsburgh.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1357460

Also, if you read the full article, there's a great PDF download that lays out the new sliding scale.

It's going to be interesting to see what the impact of this is going to be.
 
I can see what they are trying to do but I don't like it for a couple of reasons.

From a perspective of the students the idea of "locking" core courses from a kids freshman and sophmore year is ridiculous. A lot of HS kids aren't even thinking of college or college eligibility that young. If they are a late bloomer athletically their coaches aren't going to be pushing them academically to meet qualifications. Lots of kids come on later in HS, this rule will hurt them and may discourage some from making that effort to bring themselves up to standard.

From a perspective of the schools this will favor the established programs and make it harder for building programs. When competing against strong programs one of the top selling points for schools that haven't been winning as much is the opportunity to play early instead of RSing. If a kid knows he is going to have to RS either way he may be a lot more likely to just go to the more established program.

I am in favor of more stringent academic requirements and making sure that kids are qualified to be student-athletes. I don't think this change is one that helps those prospective student-athletes or makes college sports better.
 
Seems possible that we'll see an increase in the number of young players who attend post-hs academies (like Hargrove). Could be more attending JC's as well.
 
I can see what they are trying to do but I don't like it for a couple of reasons.

From a perspective of the students the idea of "locking" core courses from a kids freshman and sophmore year is ridiculous. A lot of HS kids aren't even thinking of college or college eligibility that young. If they are a late bloomer athletically their coaches aren't going to be pushing them academically to meet qualifications. Lots of kids come on later in HS, this rule will hurt them and may discourage some from making that effort to bring themselves up to standard.

From a perspective of the schools this will favor the established programs and make it harder for building programs. When competing against strong programs one of the top selling points for schools that haven't been winning as much is the opportunity to play early instead of RSing. If a kid knows he is going to have to RS either way he may be a lot more likely to just go to the more established program.

I am in favor of more stringent academic requirements and making sure that kids are qualified to be student-athletes. I don't think this change is one that helps those prospective student-athletes or makes college sports better.

We're also talking about a minimum 2.3 GPA (1 B for every 2 C's) in core courses and an average SAT score to go with it. I agree with making student athletes who fall below that threshold spend a year acclimating to college academic life. It gives them a much better chance at earning a degree. I think it strikes a better balance of giving kids an opportunity but also of not exploiting them.
 
I can see what they are trying to do but I don't like it for a couple of reasons.

From a perspective of the students the idea of "locking" core courses from a kids freshman and sophmore year is ridiculous. A lot of HS kids aren't even thinking of college or college eligibility that young. If they are a late bloomer athletically their coaches aren't going to be pushing them academically to meet qualifications. Lots of kids come on later in HS, this rule will hurt them and may discourage some from making that effort to bring themselves up to standard.

From a perspective of the schools this will favor the established programs and make it harder for building programs. When competing against strong programs one of the top selling points for schools that haven't been winning as much is the opportunity to play early instead of RSing. If a kid knows he is going to have to RS either way he may be a lot more likely to just go to the more established program.

I am in favor of more stringent academic requirements and making sure that kids are qualified to be student-athletes. I don't think this change is one that helps those prospective student-athletes or makes college sports better.

I agree with Buffnik. The ultimate goal is to educate these student-athletes, and this seems like a great boost to those student-athletes that are shoved into situations with little chance at success.

This rule may favor more 'established' programs or it may not, we'll see. I care not either way as long as the objective of this rule comes to fruition.
 
The SEC isn't going to like this. The NCAA needs to be weary of pissing those guys off. If the SEC decides to go rogue, they'll take a bunch of people with them (Big 12, ACC, prolly Big East, too).

With every stroke of the NCAA pen, they push themselves closer and closer to oblivion.
 
I agree with Buffnik. The ultimate goal is to educate these student-athletes, and this seems like a great boost to those student-athletes that are shoved into situations with little chance at success.

This rule may favor more 'established' programs or it may not, we'll see. I care not either way as long as the objective of this rule comes to fruition.

I agree that the goal should be to do a better job of providing and ensuring that student athletes have the opportunity to get a quality education.

The part you highlighted I only mentioned because it looks like something that will impact competitive balance, not because I think it is a bad thing.

The first part I mentioned is a bad thing. Thinking back over recruiting in past years and I seem to remember a number of kids who started out poorly in HS. As they developed athletically the hope of playing in college motivated them to work harder and make up for their earlier years in school to qualify and move on. The rule locking their core classes from their freshman and sophmore years will I think make some gives just give up instead of overcoming. My argument is not with the idea of raising standards and expectations but with the manner and application of doing so.
 
This will do nothing but widen the gap on the playing field. It will hurt programs with higher, tougher academic standards. Is a 2.3 at Stanford equivalent to a 2.3 at 'Bama? No way. Not only that, how would you like to be the professor at 'Bama telling Saban that Bubba Superstar isn't making his grades? In SEC country, football is part of the culture. They will use these new standards to their advantage. The talent gap will just get wider.

Unless the NCAA can figure out a way to standardize the level of academics from one program to another, they are only making things worse. Medical schools, law schools, engineering schools all have national accreditation. There is a way of comparing one to another. This is not the case for athletic program academic standards.
 
This will do nothing but widen the gap on the playing field. It will hurt programs with higher, tougher academic standards. Is a 2.3 at Stanford equivalent to a 2.3 at 'Bama? No way. Not only that, how would you like to be the professor at 'Bama telling Saban that Bubba Superstar isn't making his grades? In SEC country, football is part of the culture. They will use these new standards to their advantage. The talent gap will just get wider.

Unless the NCAA can figure out a way to standardize the level of academics from one program to another, they are only making things worse. Medical schools, law schools, engineering schools all have national accreditation. There is a way of comparing one to another. This is not the case for athletic program academic standards.

The 2.3 relates to what they achieved in high school.

To the point you were trying to make, APR and eligibility standards are the same for everyone. It's certainly more difficult to maintain a high GPA at a university with higher academic standards.
 
The 2.3 relates to what they achieved in high school.

To the point you were trying to make, APR and eligibility standards are the same for everyone. It's certainly more difficult to maintain a high GPA at a university with higher academic standards.
Thanks for the clarification. Yeah, the APR thing is what burns me. While high schools may not be equal academically, at least the test scores SHOULD level the playing field.

I wonder how this will effect the NBA as far as allowing kids to enter the draft? Stern wants to require kids to wait 2 years instead of one. The NCAA wants the NBA to allow highschoolers to be allowed to go into the draft.
 
How is this going to affect the one and done with basketball? Will we see more kids skip college all together, start some sort of farm league like baseball?
 
How is this going to affect the one and done with basketball? Will we see more kids skip college all together, start some sort of farm league like baseball?

Yeah. I think we'll see those guys do a year of JUCO if the NBA doesn't change its rule. Why spend a year on the bench if your grade are crap and you know you're leaving after 1 year?
 
HS bball players can also opt to play in Europe. Can't think of his name, but one of the guards for the Timberwolves committed to 'zona, then took his game to euro. At least the nfl requires the individual to be 3 years removed from HS.

Baseball may have the best working solution -- you can go from HS to pro ball. If you don't, you have to wait for 3 (I think) years.
 
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