Adam Gibby (00:01) Next on first and sixteen, new legislation and another injunction. Plug your ears, Texas Tech fans, as players now appear to have a fifth year of eligibility, including those who just graduated. boy, this is gonna be a big one. We're gonna talk about that on today's show. Hello and welcome to today's episode of First 16. I'm your host, Adam Gibby. Thank you for joining us today. We are being listened to in all 50 states, 63 countries around the world. So however you're joining us. Thank you so much. If you could do me a huge favor and like and subscribe to the channel, allows us to be able to reach more people, grow this community, and talk about what matters most around college football, of course, with the emphasis being on the Big 12 conference. All right, so let's get right into it. It was released yesterday that the NCAA will now have to, well, unless they are able to figure this all out. is going to to allow players who graduated in the year 2022 a fifth year of eligibility. Yeah. That's not going to create a mess at all. Let me give a little bit of a backstory. So the Save College Sports Act, which is something that is actually really, really good for college sports. It's going to do a lot of really great things. There are some things that are still questionable and we're to be talking about that the next couple of days. Yeah, I know. We're we're almost to football season. We can actually almost talk about games soon. I cannot wait for that. And we'll be talking about games until hopefully early April between football and basketball. Point's still the same. The Save College Sports Act, one of the things that it's going to do is it's going to change eligibility. Right now, you get four years and then a potential redshirt, equaling five. But under the new law, what would happen is you would just get five years. And it doesn't matter what happens in those five years. You can play all five. You can get injured for one of them, you can get injured for three of them. You could play for two years, lead the sport for a year, come back and play two more. And once you start, that's when your clock starts. Or you turn 19. Mostly referring to you know your international players. you see it mostly in basketball. You get international players to come over maybe when they're 22, 23. So if they were to do that, they would only have two or three years of eligibility as opposed to mean and will come in as a freshman. You don't see that in football as much, sometimes maybe with kickers. but really, really, it's more of a basketball thing. There are exceptions and and for BYU fans and and some Utah fans, maybe Arizona, Arizona State, there are exceptions if you serve in the military, if you serve a church mission, then those years don't count against you. But outside of that, it's just very clear. You cannot play past five years after turning nineteen or starting your playing time as, you know, an eighteen year old. Is this good though? I think on the surface, the actual change is great. I think the whole idea of redshirting is kind of dumb anyways. You get to come in, you can play four, I think it was actually moved up to six games this year in football. But then you have to sit out the rest and that encounters your redshirt. But then if you get injured, you kinda wanna save that redshirt. And what ends up happening is you get to the end of your fourth year and it's like, I haven't used a redshirt. Well, I don't want to come back and only play part of a year, so I guess I'm just done. In basketball, you don't get to play really at all. And so, you know, that red shirt's not really a thing in college basketball. You don't really see it anymore, especially with the transfer portal. It's better for a guy to go and play at you know, Colorado of the Mines or or, you know, whatever. go play at UMass for a year, get that experience, and then transfer into the Big Twelve or, you know, ACC, whatever conference. You you very, very rarely see red shirts now taken in college basketball outside of medical redshirts, which happened with injuries. And so I think it's a good overall change. I think this is gonna be great for the game. However, this new injunction that's basically saying that players who have graduated Now get an extra year. that's a little bit dangerous. And it's it's gonna cause some issues. Because what's happening now is you're getting guys maybe like a KBK at BYU, like a Jackson Kohler at Michigan State. That's been a big one. Few guys at Michigan have talked about it. You're gonna get these guys coming back, and those roster spots. that other players were taking that were expecting to be able to, you know, play and have a lot of success in, they're now going to be on the bench. So if you're a let's just say the starting point guard for Oklahoma State, right? And that's your role. That's what you're expecting. You've gone through summer practices. You've been running with the ones. All of a sudden, fifth year senior, maybe from Oklahoma State, maybe somewhere else, he now transfer in Now he's the point guard. Well, that's not really fair to you. Because you've been promised, you've been guaranteed, you've been practicing as if you're the starter. I mean, I understand that happens in professional sports all the time. And if you're not better, then be better. But at the same time, I mean, this is unprecedented. Okay, it's almost not fair. It's not right. For a player who, especially in basketball, is trying to be a one and done. Maybe for a senior quarterback in football who's transferring for their last season as a last hope for the NFL. Well, now they're the second string. That's a tough call for those guys. And I can see both sides of the argument. If you're a fifth-year senior guy, and I don't know what we're gonna call a fifth-year senior, fifth-year player, whatever, if you're that player, And you just saw this new rule come out where you get five year and five, then you you're you're looking at it saying, Hey, I just finished my fourth year. I should get a fifth. Because I've only done four. On the flip side, I can also see the other side of the argument where it's, well, yeah, you did four, but under those rules, you're done. So no, you don't get to just retroactively go back and then you get a fifth year. I see both sides of the argument, but it looks like these players are going to get to play. So the big question I've been getting, I've and I've had a few of you reach out, is is this going to affect football? We got football coming up in less than a month. We got football this month, guys. my gosh. I am so I I've said it over and over. I am so excited just to get football going, as opposed to having to talk about talking about football. Yeah, we're not even talking about football. We're talking about talking about football. You know, expansion, Lada, whatever. So the question I've been getting is we've got football this month. Are we gonna see any players join their teams or join a team? And the short answer is probably probably yes, but not very many. and I think we're probably gonna see it more at the G6 level. And here's why. Typically You're not going to get four year players in college that don't use a red shirt that aren't going to be already in the NFL. The reason for that is Well, if you're good enough to play as a freshman, you're probably gonna be good enough for the NFL by the time you're senior. Also, so many players in football just get injured. it's almost an I I don't want to say a rarity, but it's becoming more and more rare to find players that do make it all four years without suffering some kind of injury and having to use that red shirt, which again no longer exists, but all of these players did exist in that system. And so there's just not Very many of those guys. you will get some. particularly you might get those G6 guys who maybe start as, you know, offensive guard, play their freshman season, transfer as a junior, play two years at Cincinnati or whatever. Then they're at their fourth year, and it's like, well, I'm not good enough for the NFL yet. But I also, I never used my redshirt. I'm not gonna go do that now. And so you're just kind of done. Those guys exist, but it's far and few between. And at this point in the game, again, you're not you're not dealing with your all-star players. You're not dealing with your Fernando Mendozas. Okay, you're not dealing with those guys. You're you're dealing with rotational guys. And so I'm not sure how many teams this late in the game are gonna say, yeah, yeah, yeah, please come back, especially if they're gonna be transfers. Please come back or come over here. We'll get you in our system, we'll get you going, and we'd love to have you. Again, it could happen, but I don't know. I I don't see it happening too much. Maybe at the G6 level, you know, again, you get a guy from TCU, rotational guy, played all four years. Ran out of eligibility, now's looking for a fifth year, and says, okay, I'll go play for Rice, I'll go play for North Texas, whatever. It gets to start immediately just because that talent is already so much higher than the current players they have, where it's better to have higher talent than to have like perfect knowledge of the scheme or whatever. So I don't think we're gonna see it very much in football. Basketball is a whole nother thing though. I think in basketball we're gonna see a lot. Of players return. And we're already seeing large lists of players that are wanting to return. And the reason for that is basketball is different. First off, you don't have as many injuries. Second, unless you're a really elite player, after four years, you're probably not getting drafted. And even if you are drafted, you may not decide, or you may not even make the team. Typically, if you're not in the top 20, the odds of you actually making the final roster are about 50-50. So when you look at
