College football’s 2020 eligibility freeze was sorted out in one week and will have ripple effects for many years.
The NCAA Division I Board of Directors on Friday formally approved the plan to give all fall athletes an extra year of eligibility and an extra year to complete it, exactly seven days after West Virginia’s Shane Lyons told The Athletic he would push the Division I Council to recommend this plan. Lyons was resolute about how this relief needed to be handled: Implement it immediately and figure out the rest later on.
“Everybody says, well, what rabbit hole are you going to go down? What are the unintended consequences?” Lyons said. “We’ll deal with those later. That’s what we get paid for. We’ll figure it out.”
The NCAA announcement provided only one detail on how this will work: Seniors who take advantage of their extra year in 2021 will not count against their team’s scholarship limit.
