I am a high school senior who plays football. I was injured for my junior and end of senior year so i didnt have much tape to send to colleges. I want to play at the college level but only got division II offers. I was to go to a college at NYU which doesnt have a football program at all would my eligibility be preserved allowing me to train the years I spend there before transfer to a Power 5 School. Please let me know
The basic rule (and there are a ton of exceptions) is that you have 5 years post high school to play 4 years of your sport. Your eligibility isn’t ‘preserved’ because you go to a school that doesn’t have football but your injury, military service, religious mission may give you more years to play.
The possibility of playing for a power 5 conference after not playing anywhere for 3-4 years is minute.
The rehab and trainer that I would have had in NYU has trained some of the greats so I would improve my game and be better then I was. So lets say I start football in 3 years would i get to play for an additional 4 years. I am trying to do something similar to Jarett Stidham of Auburn after he left Baylor
Recommend you check out informedathlete.com.
As I said there are a ton of exceptions, so I don’t know how Stidham was able to play at another school. Was he inured? Did he redshirt? Lots of guys play a post grad year (Russel Wilson @Wisconsin) because they have one year of eligibility left. Chris Hogan of the Patriots played 3 years of lacrosse at Penn State but was injured for his junior year and so had one year of NCAA eligibility left. He couldn’t play football at Penn State but went to Monmouth and Bill Belichick likes lacrosse so offered him a tryout. The rest is history.
Stidham did get injured and decided to transfer after the Baylor coach was fired under bad circumstances. He had to sit out a year, enrolled in a junior college and practiced with the local high school team to stay sharp. Apparently it worked, at least from the view in my seat at Jordan Hare yesterday - War Eagle!
But you aren’t on a team and hurt Unless a coach can get you an exception, you’d be under the 5 years post high school graduation rule.
I think all the Baylor players who wanted one got a release to play at another school immediately.
The general rule is you have 5 years in which to complete four years of NCAA competition once you are a high school graduate or equivalent. As @twoinanddone said above, there are several exceptions to this rule, most notably exceptions for active military service or religious activities. There is also a rule that is applied on a case by case basis which may grant a sixth year. This is most commonly sought by athletes who are hurt early in a season, but it is at least technically available to kids who have some significant personal or family event which makes participation impossible. Sixth years are not granted often though.
The “clock” starts whether you are a rostered athlete or even an enrolled student. The only effect that being rostered has is that once you are rostered you are subject to the NCAA transfer rules, which effectively means that if you are a scholarship athlete you will lose a year of eligibility (and be ineligible for a scholarship during that year) if you transfer prior to graduation and are not granted a release. Again, there are several exceptions here, particularly in non head count sports. Once you graduate though, you can transfer without restriction and play out your additional eligibility elsewhere.
And yes, as part of the sanctions placed on Baylor’s football program, every rostered player was given a blanket release to leave the program if they wanted.
We did have one girl on our team last year who was a grad student and I’m not sure if she was in a 6th year or a 5th, but she did have to get permission from the NCAA. She started as a soccer player and played one year, then transferred and I think played some of the season before getting hurt, transferred again and played soccer but also started lax. She got to play 3 years of lax. Not sure of the math for putting together seasons played in the fall. She played 3 spring seasons in a row.
I don’t see how your not playing immediate would preserve your eligibility. You are choosing to go to a school that doesn’t have football. It is pretty unusual for someone to go to a Power 5 team without playing for a year. How will the Power 5 coaches know you exist? You still won’t have any film after working out with a trainer for a year. Watch [u[Last Chance U on Netflix. Playing JUCO is what students are doing who didn’t get Power 5 offers (or didn’t have the grades) to get them for sophomore or junior years.
It’s a calendar year clock from the end of the spring term in which your HS class graduated. That is how it covers sports that straddle semesters/quarters.
I meant that she may not have played enough of the soccer season to have it count as a year. She played soccer her freshman year, then transferred and may or may not have played soccer at school #2. I just don’t know when she got hurt but know she didn’t play the entire season , then played fall soccer and spring lax her 3rd year at her 3rd school.
And then dropped soccer for lax.
Well I was planning to Walk On to a program and work my way from there but just getting the extra training and workout plus the training that I have had in high school could put me in a better position and allow me to rehab better.
So if i understand correctly, I have 5 years to start but when i start I have the regular 4/5 years to play
No, you have 5 years from the time you graduate from high school to play for 4 years. This allows for a redshirt year or an injury year. If you graduate in 2018, you can play for the next 4 years, 2018-19 through 2021-22 school years. If you miss one of those years, you could play one more, 2022-2023. If you go on a religious mission, you can gain more time. I think if you take a post grad year, you’d have to play 4 straight years or apply for an injury exception.
Basically they don’t want 26 year olds playing with 18 year olds.
So all those Baseball Players who were in the majors and minors (Brandon Weeden) who start football when they were 22 or something had a special established exception?
It’s usually the other way around. They start at 18, play for 3 years and then have one year left of eligibility like Russel Wilson and Bernie Kozar who started masters degrees in their last year of eligibility. I don’t know why Weeden got to play outside the 5 year rule, but as I said there are a lot of exceptions. I just don’t think you can plan on getting an exception.
D1, D2 and D3 Hockey has a lot of players who play in Canada for 2+ years before enrolling so they are 20/21 as Freshman Eligibility clock doesn’t start until 21.
Here’s the general rule. Lots of exceptions:
This does appear to allow you to play more than 5 years after you graduate from high school if you do not attend any college. Weeden never attended college until he’d played baseball for 5 years. He would not have been eligible to play college baseball since he was a professional and had been paid to play.
The hockey players can’t receive more than minimal living costs while they are ‘professionals.’
So you may be able to sit out 5 years and still have your eligibility, but once you start attending college, your 5 year clock starts ticking.
^ @twoinanddone is right, I was wrong earlier. I looked at the actual rule and it must have changed sometime in the last thirty years or so, who knew? The five year clock now starts when you enroll in a degree granting institution, either two or four year. There is no exception for schools which do not offer your chosen sport though, so once you enroll at NYU or wherever the countdown starts.