The Big Ten is drawing a hard line as former NFL players keep finding their way back into college football, and the conference appears ready to make that path a lot tougher for its schools.
According to Pete Thamel, the league is set to announce a rule on Tuesday that would bar former NFL players from returning to play for Big Ten teams. The move comes as the sport has been watching a growing wave of players test the boundaries of eligibility, and conferences have been getting hit with the same demand from fans: do something.
The timing is no accident. While no Big Ten school has signed a former NFL player yet, LSU has signed two, and Kentucky and Missouri are in the process of signing at least one. That trend only increases the pressure on other players to try the same route Dae'Quan Wright took earlier this week.
Wright went to court seeking a Temporary Restraining Order under the NCAA’s new eligibility rules, which give current players five years to play without redshirts or many other waivers. He argued, like others before him, that he should have been granted a fifth year because he was part of the 2022 class. His case stood apart because he had signed with the NFL, something that has traditionally marked the end of a college sports career.
A Louisiana judge granted Wright’s TRO, and he has since signed with LSU, becoming the first to cross that line. Lane Kiffin defended LSU’s move by saying that if he hadn’t done it, somebody else would. The Big Ten now seems determined to make sure that, in its league, that “somebody else” won’t be one of its coaches.
Sources told Thamel that the rule would apply to any player who has declared for the NFL Draft and did not withdraw, appeared on an NFL roster or signed a contract with a pro league. The exact wording is still unknown, and that matters because the conference will need to be careful about how it writes the policy. Lawsuits are expected once it becomes official.
Rather than simply declaring former NFL players ineligible and inviting a judge to override it, the more likely approach is to punish schools that sign them. That would let the conference say, in effect: you can sign those guys and they can make their money, but you better not play them or else.
That kind of threat may be the real point. The legal argument behind the TROs around the country has been that the NCAA has unfairly restricted a player’s ability to earn money that others are allowed to earn. The Big Ten may be trying to sidestep that fight by putting the consequences on the schools instead of the players.
There’s also a practical reason the conference may think this can work. The Big Ten, SEC and other leagues already have bylaws that allow them to punish member schools for violating conference rules.
Earlier this summer, Brendan Sorsby was preparing to play for Texas Tech after admitting he gambled on his own team while at Indiana. The NCAA could not stop him because of his own TRO.
The Big 12 then threatened to punish Texas Tech and the school, and Sorsby backed down.
That’s the play the Big Ten seems to be making now. It’s a bold move, and it may be the right one. The rest of college football is waiting to see whether it actually holds.
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