NCAA approves immediate transfer eligibility

On Wednesday afternoon the NCAA decided to grant a waiver allowing all D1 athletes to play immediately regardless of sport. This is only for this year and only applies to those athletes who have been enrolled at their school in the fall semester so Syracuse Orange fans can hold off on the idea of Jimmy Boeheim joining the basketball team next week.

It’s a decision that will impact the Orange in other ways as the biggest beneficiaries will be basketball athletes who can now join their teams. This includes Trey Wertz of Notre Dame, Nike Sibande of Pitt and Elijah Olaniyi of Miami who will now be suiting up to face Syracuse in ACC play this winter. There is hope that the NCAA will make a permanent change next month.

While this decision was too late for Chris Bleich to help the Orange football team, he did get some good news yesterday as well.

This would indicate that Bleich would have three years left to help solidify the Syracuse offensive line so it’s a gift that could keep on giving. We’ll see if the permanent rule change happens and what sort of fallout that will trigger this coming offseason — which already seems to be leaning toward unprecedented player movement.

Another thing to watch is the current NIL battle taking place in Congress. A new bill was introduced in the Senate which would push to grant athletes a number of rights. Included along with the ability to market themselves, the bill would push for more guarantees to athletes in terms of health coverage, academic support and this interesting piece

“Allowing athletes to go through a pro draft but return to school as long they notify the school not later than seven days after the draft is completed and they didn’t get paid by a pro team.”

Changing the draft process would certainly add even more unpredictability to player movement and roster constructions so we’ll keep an eye on these items as the process moves forward.