Notre Dame: Impact of NCAA decision to expand eligibility rules

Yesterday, the NCAA board of directors voted to allow Division I colleges and universities to expand the eligibility of student-athletes in spring sports.

The NCAA announced that its board of directors voted to approve the extension of eligibility for one year for all student-athletes who play a spring sport, due to the fact that the 2020 spring seasons were forced to end shortly after they began due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NCAA ruled that players may remain at the campus for an additional season of eligibility, but that universities must ultimately determine how they will handle the financial aid portion of the situation in regard to whether or not they offer additional financial aid to student-athletes.

The sports that are impacted by this ruling include men’s baseball, women’s softball, tennis, golf, outdoor track and field, women’s water polo, men’s and women’s lacrosse, rowing, beach volleyball, and men’s volleyball.

The decision did not have any bearing on student-athletes who played winter sports such as men’s and women’s basketball or hockey, despite the fact that those seasons were forced to end without completing conference championships or national tournaments.

The NCAA board of directors did announce that they voted unanimously to distribute $225 million to Division I colleges and universities to help compensate for lost revenue due to the cancellation of the tournaments. However, the $225 million fell well short of the initial projections of nearly $600 million that was expected to be distributed to the schools.

In situations where eligibility is extended, but scholarships are not, student-athletes will have to determine if they are willing to pay tuition to remain at the university for an additional year of eligibility in their spring sport.

In addition to extending eligibility to student-athletes of spring sports, the NCAA also voted to expand rosters where roster limits would be impacted by the addition of an incoming freshman class and the players who decide to remain for an extra year of eligibility. This is most notable for baseball, which has strict limitations on its roster size.

It should be noted that this extension does not only apply to seniors in an effort to give them one more chance at glory but extends to underclassmen and graduate students as well. The NCAA made this an all-encompassing ruling so as to mitigate the impact of a lost year of eligibility across the board.

This is good news for the Notre Dame spring sports teams. The Notre Dame men’s and women’s lacrosse teams were nationally ranked when the season was canceled. The Notre Dame men’s baseball team was ranked in the top-25 in 2020 for the first time in five years under new coach Link Jarrett. The women’s softball team was ranked 23rd when the season ended. Notre Dame’s women’s tennis team was ranked 15th in the nation when everything stopped. The Notre Dame men’s track and field was ranked 19th in the nation, while the women were ranked 25th. The Irish rowing team was ranked nationally as well.

With so many Notre Dame spring sports teams doing well nationally at the time that everything was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the teams have to be relieved to know that they will not be forced to lose any of their players due to eligibility being lost when the season ended so abruptly and so soon after beginning.

It is also important to note how the NCAA handled this situation as there are growing concerns over whether the upcoming college football season is in jeopardy of being canceled as well. This week both Kirk Herbstreit and Notre Dame head football coach Brian Kelly quipped about the possibility of a lost 2020 football season.

Based on this ruling, it is safe to assume that the NCAA Board of Directors will likely rule in the same fashion should the fall sports seasons ultimately need to be canceled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Let’s hope it does not come to that, but at least there is precedence now set in the event that was to occur.