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Should undrafted football players be allowed to return to play college ball

Should undrafted football players be allowed to return to play college ball


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He should have the people in his inner circle telling him what he NEEDS to hear instead of telling him what he WANTS to hear.
 
At its core, college is meant to develop you into someone that can have a good career in the major/career path you choose. I think they definitely should reconsider this rule. Now because of the roster uncertainty, and the situation being that a possible draftee would be training away from the team, I think that the draftee should have to give up the guarantee of a scholarship for the following year though.
 
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I think they should just get rid of the whole "declaring for the draft" thing. Let NFL teams draft whoever the f* they want, then any player drafted who still has college eligibility left can make the decision from there whether to return to college or accept the draft results. NFL teams would have rights to that player for either 1 year or 2, whatever is agreed upon. In this NIL world, hiring an agent should have no bearing on anything regarding college eligibility.

If the player returns to college, the NFL team could get screwed, but there would also be times when NFL teams would roll the dice and come out golden. It seems that the NBA might have had a rule similar to this way back when.

If a player gets word that he might get drafted so decides to skip the bowl game or something like that, that's fine, but if he doesn't get drafted, he would be missing spring practice and probably alienating his team, so he might need to hit the portal if he wants to finish college ball.

And get rid of the whole asinine NFL Combine and all the personal workouts. What a colossal waste of time and $. There are just as many draft busts and diamonds in the rough today as there were 50 years ago when teams would draft players sight unseen.
 
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Really bizarro world that the NCAA currently has set up. The "big wigs" of the football world will reel in all the NIL-biased transfers they want. Even walk-ons will get some money - effectively circumventing the scholarship cap.

And the worst of it all ... is that guys are entering the transfer portal at an enormous clip ... with an alarming number of them not landing anywhere afterwards. While for many programs ... they'll be losing their top talent to the "big dogs" ... for many programs (especially the "big dogs") ... the transfer portal is effectively going to be a way that they also shed guys from their roster who are "dead weight."

I wonder when a reckoning comes when some of these guys realize that they shouldn't be quite so quick to bail ... because there might not other opportunities out there for them like they suppose.
 
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I mean if they can go back to college and get their degree, then why couldn't they come back and play if they're not seniors and have used up all their eligibility?

I personally like the CBB model where players can test the waters and still come back as long as they don't hire an agent.
Would also add that they have to remain a student in good standing.
 
The biggest problem is “good standing”,
Many of them quit football team before bowl game so you know they are not going to class for 5 months.
great in principal but hard in execution
 
I voted yes, and as a practical matter, I think they'd have to agree to be treated as transfer portal players, and leave their current program because their own team has likely moved on in terms of younger guys moving up.

Also, if the ability to come back is a possibility then there's an incentive to participate in the bowl game and maintain good standing through the spring semester (unless a December graduate).
 
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Is that your take with CBB as well?
The NBA and the NFL are exactly the same. In either if you leave your name in the draft and go undrafted. You are no longer eligible to play college. If you are talking about the eval period, the NBA has then you are talking about two completely different things.
However, you do know that a college football player can declare for the NFL draft, but as long as they remove their name by a certain date and do not hire an agent, they do not affect their college eligibility.
 
No. They're adults and want to be paid like adults, so they need to accept the outcome like adults...
In so many respects ... I pretty much have a comparable view.

However, that said my perspective is more of one relating to "you make a mistake ... hopefully you learn from it." I wouldn't make the mistake of painting such individuals as adults though. I teach folks who are predominantly in that age range ... and I can attest that, at least for young males ... they're still pretty damn immature ... often well into their 20s (if not later).

I would definitely draw a distinction between "adult" and "young adult" ... at least if we're trying to agree upon classifiers.
 
I mean if they can go back to college and get their degree, then why couldn't they come back and play if they're not seniors and have used up all their eligibility?

I personally like the CBB model where players can test the waters and still come back as long as they don't hire an agent.
Anyone can go back and finish their degree, there have been several at each school we’ve visited this year that are in the NFL or done playing in the NFL including those who didn’t finish out their eligibility.
 
Heck with the way the NCAA has thrown out the rules, I don't see why they can't come back even if they were drafted.
Haha that is a good point. Pretty soon, will we reach the point of NCAA teams engaging in bidding wars with NFL teams to try and get draft picks to return to college for another year instead of playing for the team that drafted them?
 
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The biggest problem is “good standing”,
Many of them quit football team before bowl game so you know they are not going to class for 5 months.
great in principal but hard in execution
too bad for them
 
Who cares anymore. If Megatron wants another crack at college, I say let him. There are no rules, just win baby.
 
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And the worst of it all ... is that guys are entering the transfer portal at an enormous clip ... with an alarming number of them not landing anywhere afterwards.

Great point. Most people are missing the forest for the trees. The transfer portal helps coaches cycle through players at a faster rate.

The transfer portal, in total, is a net negative for the players. Only 54% of transfers found a landing spot. But most of them don't realize what is happening.

Deuce Hogan gave up a full ride to Iowa to walkon at Kentucky and pay ~$43k a year. Ouch.
 
Its alot easier to test the waters for the NBA due to the number of players. For the NFL it would be very difficult to deal with the number of players testing out the draft and leaving the door open to return. Plus they would likely miss all of spring ball.
 
No, I don't think so. If you spin the wheel of fortune and it comes up empty, you just have to deal with it. You should not have a safe harbor fall back plan to return to NCAA football. It would be entirely unmanageable.
 
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Great point. Most people are missing the forest for the trees. The transfer portal helps coaches cycle through players at a faster rate.

The transfer portal, in total, is a net negative for the players. Only 54% of transfers found a landing spot. But most of them don't realize what is happening.

Deuce Hogan gave up a full ride to Iowa to walkon at Kentucky and pay ~$43k a year. Ouch.
Absolutely ... while I don't believe that universities should exploit their athletes (in terms of names, likeness, etc) ... it's exploitation by stupidity (of the player) to use the transfer portal as a means of cycling through players at a faster rate (via dropping dead weight).

Some places ... MAYBE they let a guy come back (if they enter the portal) ... however, the university is under no obligation to hold the spot for the guy once he enters the portal. The coaching staff gives a player a bit of a "cold-shoulder" ... and his discontent translates to jumping on the portal ... and then "poof" ... his scholarship is gone. Before a bunch of SEC programs would over-sign players and then fail to renew scholarships to some players ... and that would make those programs look bad. Now those programs have an "out" that makes them smelling like a rose ... even though what they're doing is no more scrupulous.
 
Absolutely ... while I don't believe that universities should exploit their athletes (in terms of names, likeness, etc) ... it's exploitation by stupidity (of the player) to use the transfer portal as a means of cycling through players at a faster rate (via dropping dead weight).

Some places ... MAYBE they let a guy come back (if they enter the portal) ... however, the university is under no obligation to hold the spot for the guy once he enters the portal. The coaching staff gives a player a bit of a "cold-shoulder" ... and his discontent translates to jumping on the portal ... and then "poof" ... his scholarship is gone. Before a bunch of SEC programs would over-sign players and then fail to renew scholarships to some players ... and that would make those programs look bad. Now those programs have an "out" that makes them smelling like a rose ... even though what they're doing is no more scrupulous.
Iowa has had 2 I can think of they allowed back after entering the portal, Daviyon Nixon (Football) and Josh Ogundele (Basketball). Maybe there are more, but not certain.
 
Why not? NIL is a big player in the game, basketball players are allowed to do so. It is just another tool for the kids to use to gauge where they are and what they need to improve upon to have a chance at the next level.
 
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