The ACC may be preparing to follow the Big Ten’s lead on a new college football eligibility issue, but Syracuse’s immediate situation with Justus Ross-Simmons appears unchanged for now.
On Tuesday morning, reports surfaced that the Big Ten Conference is set to pass legislation that would block professional football players from returning to college. The ACC, according to reports, is considering similar action. If that happens, players who declared for the NFL Draft and never withdrew would be ineligible, along with anyone who previously signed a pro contract or appeared on an NFL roster.
The backdrop here is the NCAA’s new “age-based eligibility model,” which was passed this summer. Under that rule, athletes get five calendar years to play five seasons of their sport.
That effectively gives players an extra year of eligibility compared with the old setup. But there are no more medical redshirts and no more redshirts just for sitting out.
If a player misses a season, that player simply ends up with four years of eligibility, as before.
Syracuse men’s basketball player Kiyan Anthony is one example of how the rule works. After his freshman season, he now has four more years of eligibility if he wants them.
The NFL side of this issue is where things get tricky. Players can’t declare for the NFL Draft until they are three years removed from high school, which means some leave college after their third or fourth season with eligibility still available.
Some of those players have already gone through NFL camps, training camp and preseason, and now want to return to college to use that extra time. In some cases, the appeal is simple: the college route may offer a better outlook than their current NFL situation.
For Syracuse, the key name is Ross-Simmons. The school has tried to bring back the wide receiver this offseason.
He was ruled eligible at first, but is currently ineligible because of an NCAA stay that was granted. The NCAA has been pushing back against players trying to return to college, and now the conferences may start doing the same.
Ross-Simmons was not drafted and did not take part in any NFL camps, but he played four seasons, so his name would have been in the NFL Draft. If he officially declared, the proposed ACC rule would make him ineligible.
That said, this issue is far from settled. Players can still try to challenge these rules in court and seek injunctions, which is why the whole thing remains in flux.
There is a clear reason leagues would want to draw a line here. On one hand, college programs benefit when a player comes back after getting coached and trained at the pro level.
On the other, it can disrupt recruiting and leave current rosters built around assumptions that suddenly no longer hold. That’s the tension Oregon coach Dan Lanning pointed to earlier this week.
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Syracuse Enters Final Camp Week With A Real Receiver Depth Concern
Day one of Week 4 of Syracuse Orange training camp brought the program into its final full week before game preparation begins, and the receiving room is suddenly one of the more unsettled spots on the roster. Justus Ross-Simmons was on hand but did not take part in practice as his eligibility dispute continues to play out after a court ruling and an NCAA stay, leaving Syracuse to keep moving forward without a player it had hoped to count on.
The depth issue is only sharper because of the injuries to Terrell Wilfong and Calvin Russell III, which have already thinned out the group. In their absence, transfers Cole Weaver and Zamondre Merriweather are expected to take on the lead roles, and the next few practices will go a long way toward showing how quickly Syracuse can settle on a workable rotation before the season turns from camp mode into game-week urgency. [Read more 🡒]