Leaders of the College Football Playoff on Friday stopped short of implementing any new rules around eligibility or participation but issued a statement that “strongly supports” the recent positions of conferences prohibiting players returning to college teams from the NFL.
“The CFP strongly supports the positions and rules of individual conferences concerning the return to college of athletes with professional draft, contract or roster ties,” the statement read. “These conference rules are intended to protect the needs, interests and integrity of the sport. The CFP believes that certain clear rules should be followed so that individual institutions fielding FBS football teams know what will be expected of them, and so that the public can have full confidence in the competitive integrity of the sport. Given the ongoing legal proceedings, we will not have further comments on the matter at this time.”
The CFP’s management committee, which consists of the 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua, held a videoconference for the second time this week to discuss the eligibility issue, which has been a national headline this week centered on LSU. The group began considering this topic at a June meeting in Denver after a judge ruled that former Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby was eligible to play in spite of admitting to gambling, including on former team Indiana.
The Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12 recently put out independent statements that were nuanced in their own way but collectively agreed that former NFL players shouldn’t be allowed to return to college rosters.
On Thursday, after a lengthy court hearing, a judge in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ruled that Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris are cleared to return to college football after brief stints in the NFL.
Wright and Harris, both former Ole Miss players, said Thursday that they intend to join their former coach Lane Kiffin during his debut season at LSU, which opens Saturday night against Clemson. They are among 42 athletes from various sports — including former Notre Dame pass rusher Junior Tuihalamaka, who also plans to play for LSU — who have sued the NCAA in Louisiana to play a fifth and final season of college sports, as athletes in later classes are now allowed to do.
The SEC in late August joined the Big Ten in its opposition to athletes leaving the NFL and returning to college teams, swiftly reaffirming its conference rule and giving commissioner Greg Sankey full authority to enforce it “with penalties.”
During an in-person meeting with league presidents, chancellors and athletic directors, the SEC took it even further than the Big Ten, prohibiting anyone who has previously declared for professional basketball from rejoining college athletics without appropriately withdrawing. The ACC’s new rule limited its scope to the NFL and professional basketball, while the Big 12 unanimously agreed to ban professionals from returning in all sports, becoming the first conference to include all sports.
