Not sure why on Earth you would want to force a player to stay an extra year when they want to move on (not that there is any way to do that anyway). Silly idea is silly.
I NEVER ever said he should be forced to stay a 5th year!! I said, as in BJ's case as an example, he graduates in 4 years fine. Even though he is leaving his 4th year of playing eligibility hanging out there, as long as he
INFORMS the staff around Sept 1, pick the date, of his junior year eligibility wise, that he plans to play that year, graduate in the Spring, and then be done, and NOT use his 5th year, fine. Then he is giving the staff ample time to find his replacement.
However, it can put a staff/program recruiting wise at a major disadvantage if the kid plays his 3rd year, then AFTER the season is over, decides to hang it up and didn't inform the staff when the season began that will be his last, and the coaches then have to scramble to find a replacement after all the top JUCO DL have already committed somewhere else by then. You potentially end up taking a flyer 1* DL who has to go through Strength/Conditioning, learn the system, techniques and in most cases that kid does not play nearly as well as the kid that would have been a 5th year senior, and the TEAM suffers. In my mind, it penalizes CPR on a critical position on the field to win games, which affects his job security, or any other coach for that matter.
All I am saying is that these kids, if they plan to graduate early should have enough
Accountability to inform their coach, and not penalize his teammates because he is deciding to end his career early. I started out saying that should be an Internal policy that CPR manages. Then CyErik asked how to enforce it and the only way to "enforce" something like this is to make it an NCAA policy and to have some Teeth in it. I suggested a $5-8K Tuition penalty for not informing the TEAM you are not playing your 5th year, costs which the staff must recuperate to fly all over the country and find a kid to replace the one that left early. And kids do not lose their scholarship at ISU for no reason (unless something has changed) unless they fail to make grades, skip practice, or fail to abide by the rules set out by the program. Do the right thing and no kid that I know of at ISU loses his scholarship under CPR. If that was the case, then I could name about 1/6 of the team each year that probably would lose their schollies because they are 4th and 5th year scholarship players who never see the field.
If every school, after summer camp let out, looked at their student athletes transcripts, sat them down and said hey Billy, you only need 24 credits to graduate, which would put the graduation date as next spring or summer, BEFORE your final year of playing eligibility. We are very proud of you, but do you plan on playing that 5th year or moving on with your life after football? I don't think that becomes a hard conversation to have. I also don't agree that CPR would penalize the kid and not play him that last (junior) year because the player wants to graduate in 4 years. CPR will put the best players on the field. His job security is based on winning games so not putting your best players out there would be a direct contradiction to winning games. This is Easy. I'm done with this conversation.
