Shea Patterson to Michigan. Justin Fields to Ohio State. Tate Martell to Miami.
These high-profile transfers and subsequent waivers granting immediate eligibility may be a thing of the past.
NCAA brass met in Indianapolis on Wednesday to review and announce "minor adjustments" of its transfer policies that, according to the NCAA, are “intended to clarify the requirements, prompt more involvement from athletics directors and give guidance to members as they submit waivers.”
The old policy, implemented in 2018, ruled a committee could grant a waiver to a transfer for immediate eligibility if the athlete could provide “documented mitigating circumstances outside of the student-athlete’s control and directly impacts the health, safety or well-being of the student-athlete.”
The updated policy reviewed Wednesday, according to USA Today, requires “documented extenuating, extraordinary and mitigating circumstances outside of the student-athlete’s control that directly impacts the health, safety or well-being of the student-athlete.”
The key words here are “extenuating and extraordinary,” which should put more burden on the athlete and his/her new program.
“Across the board, the proposed new guidelines raise the bar for schools seeking a waiver on behalf of a student-athlete,” attorney Tom Mars told USA Today. “Given the dramatic increase in the number of waivers being sought for the 2019-20 season, raising the bar strikes me as a sensible short-term reaction by the Legislative Council.”
Fields, who was represented by Mars in his transfer case, was granted immediate eligibility at Ohio State after he argued he was the target of racial slurs by a Georgia baseball player during a football game.
Martell then jumped from Ohio State to Miami, where he was granted a similar “hardship waiver.”
Those Fields and Martell’s transfers garnered heavy attention, the transfer wave is widespread. According to The Associated Press, the NCAA fielded 256 waiver requests in 2018-19 after handling 163 the previous year.
A full breakdown of the changes can be read here.