NCAA to allow players to transfer without sitting a season

NCAA president Mark Emmert Robert Deutsch via Imagn Content Services, LLC

NCAA to allow college football, basketball players to transfer without sitting a season

By Zac Wassink | Last updated Apr 14, 2021 6:08 PM ET

One of the most controversial rules in college sports is no more.

Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic was first to report the NCAA will allow athletes in all sports, such as football and basketball, to transfer one time before graduating without having to sit out an entire season.

The change won't be made official until the end of Thursday's meeting.

Notification dates passed, too, source tells @TheAthletic. In normal years, will be a May 1 deadline for fall/winter-sport athletes to tell their schools they're transferring & a July 1 deadline for spring-sport athletes.

(This isn't official until end of Thursday's meeting.)
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) April 14, 2021

For this year only, a waiver has been approved for all transferring athletes to use a July 1 notification deadline for immediate eligibility for the 2021-22 academic year, source tells @TheAthletic.

(This isn't officially until end of Thursday's meeting.)
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) April 14, 2021

Per the Associated Press (h/t ESPN), athletes in sports other than football, men's and women's basketball, men's ice hockey and baseball are already able to take advantage of the one-time transfer exemption without requiring an NCAA waiver. Those who had already graduated were also permitted to transfer without sitting.

Journalists and fans have criticized the previous rule for years, largely because coaches were able to jump from university to university and make millions of dollars in the process without having to worry about missing a recruiting period, let alone a season. That will no longer be the case starting with the 2021 fall semester.

Zac Wassink

Zac Wassink is a longtime sports news writer and PFWA member who began his career in 2006 and has had his work featured on Yardbarker, MSN, Yahoo Sports and Bleacher Report. He is also a football and futbol aficionado who is probably yelling about Tottenham Hotspur at the moment and who chanted for Matt Harvey to start the ninth inning of Game 5 of the 2015 World Series at Citi Field. You can find him on X at @ZacWassink

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