Notre Dame football: COVID-19 and the potential impacts on eligibility

There is a growing threat of the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA college football season which could cause issues surrounding eligibility for players.

There is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is the uncertainty of what the final impacts will be on the health and well-being of the human race. There is uncertainty over the total economic impacts that the coronavirus shutdown could cause. The duration of how long society will need to continue to employ social distancing measures is also uncertain.

The uncertainty caused by the pandemic is also extended to the world of college football, as there is growing concern over the 2020 NCAA college football season being canceled in an effort to try to prevent the continued spread of the virus through mass gatherings such as sporting events.

Yesterday ESPN football analyst Kirk Herbstreit set the social media world ablaze with his prognostication that the NCAA and NFL football seasons could be canceled. Herbstreit was quoted as saying “I’ll be shocked if we have NFL football this fall if we have college football. I’ll be so surprised if that happens.”

Herbstreit’s comments come on the heels of ESPN analyst Jeff Passan announcing the Major League Baseball had agreed to not begin the 2020 season until there are no longer bans on mass travel that limits the ability to play in front of fans until there are no travel restrictions, and until medical experts determine that games will not pose a risk to the health of teams or fans.

While Major League Baseball was scheduled to begin its season this past week, putting its season in more imminent danger than the college football season that is set to begin in August, student activities on all major university campuses are currently prohibited, an order that is expected to extend for the foreseeable future. The fact that there will be no spring practices and that teams may not be able to begin meeting until the fall at earliest is an indication that the college football season could be postponed or even canceled depending on how long this pandemic drags on.

If the NCAA does ultimately decide to cancel the 2020 college football season in an attempt to help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be a number of questions that arise in regard to the future of college football. First and foremost on that list of questions is likely to be what the effect will be on the eligibility of players.

The NCAA could decide to allow players who would have been eligible to declare for the 2021 NFL Draft to count the missed 2020 season to count towards their eligibility if they wanted to enter the 2021 NFL Draft. That ruling would benefit players such as the University of Clemson’s star quarterback Trevor Lawrence.

Lawrence, was a sophomore last season and was thus ineligible to declare for the 2020 NFL Draft. If the NCAA were to rule that they were willing to waive the eligibility requirements, he would be able to enter the 2021 NFL Draft.

However, the NCAA would be wise to allow players to waive it in cases similar to Lawrence but not mandate that it count against eligibility. A mandate that the missed year count as a year of eligibility would be extremely detrimental to a lot of players.

A glaring example of a player that it would be detrimental to is Notre Dame quarterback Ian Book. After Book underperformed expectations during the 2019 college football season, he opted to come back to South Bend for his final year of eligibility. Mandating that he had to count the 2020 season against that eligibility would force him to declare for the NFL Draft without the opportunity to improve upon his 2019 results. The impact would likely be extremely detrimental to Book.

The same would hold true for players such as Liam Eichenberg,  and Tommy Kraemer who both returned to South Bend for the 2020 season in hopes of improving their draft stock going into the 2021 NFL Draft.

Conversely, Notre Dame center Jarrett Patterson could benefit if the NCAA allowed players to waive a year of eligibility. Patterson, like Trevor Lawrence’s situation referenced earlier, was a sophomore for the Irish last season and was ineligible to declare for the 2020 NFL Draft. However, he projects as one of the top center prospects heading into the 2021 NFL Draft and thus could opt to waive his eligibility.

It is most likely that the NCAA decides to allow the players to decide if they want to waive a year of eligibility or not. That way they don’t punish the players for not being able to play the 2020 football season due to a global crisis that was outside of their control.

By allowing them to decide their own fate, players such as Lawrence and Patterson do not get punished financially by being forced to remain in college and are instead allowed to enter the 2021 NFL Draft, while players such as Book, Kramer, and Eichenberg are allowed to return to their schools in an effort to try to boost their future draft value.

There is a great deal of uncertainty as to how this could eventually play out. Uncertainty seems to be the norm for everything these days. That said, the NCAA would be wise to have a plan in place for how they will handle player eligibility if the 2020 season is indeed canceled. It would be wise to have a plan in place soon so that the players and universities can have some certainty about their futures moving forward.

The NCAA surely has to be considering these things as the threat of cancellation of the season becomes a more likely outcome. It will be interesting to see what decision they ultimately decide upon if the time comes to cancel the 2020 college football season.