Time For a Rule Change?

[buckiprof]

I saw this article in yesterday's Plain Dealer. It seems that this 16-year old rule in question only potentionally "hurts" players at a university on the quarter system. Note that this is an AFCA rule, not an NCAA rule. Is it time for OSU and the other quarter system universities to ask that this rule be looked at or not?

Classes leaving Buckeyes left out


Sunday, May 07, 2006Doug Lesmerises
Plain Dealer Reporter
Columbus- Ohio State is a football factory. For the last 16 years, an NFL rule has forced Buckeyes bound for the pros to show up late for work.
An agreement originally intended to prevent pro teams from forcing players to drop out of school after the NFL draft serves now to set back rookies from nine Division I universities that don't hold graduation until June.


The rule, enforced by the NFL and created with the encouragement of the American Football Coaches Association in 1990, limits players to one minicamp with his NFL team while school is still in session. Most colleges, which hold commencement by the middle of May, aren't affected because school's out by the second round of minicamps.


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<SCRIPT **********"**********"> <!-- if (parseFloat(navigator.appVersion) == 0) { document.write('<IFRAME WIDTH=468 HEIGHT=60 MARGINWIDTH=0 MARGINHEIGHT=0 HSPACE=0 VSPACE=0 FRAMEBORDER=0 SCROLLING=no BORDERCOLOR="#000000" SRC="http://ads.cleveland.com/RealMedia/ads/adstream_sx.ads/www.cleveland.com/xml/story/s2/s2osf/@StoryAd"></IFRAME>'); } --></script> <noscript> </noscript> Not so for colleges on the quarter system that don't hold spring exams until June. No school has more players affected than Ohio State, which had 35 players in the NFL at the start of last season and is sending 14 more to pro camps this year, nine as drafted players and five more as free agents.
While players like first-round picks A.J. Hawk of Green Bay and Santonio Holmes with Pittsburgh may fall a bit behind, the players hurt most by missing 10 to 15 early practices are the free agents hoping to catch a coach's eye.


"Santonio Holmes is going to be a Pittsburgh Steeler no matter what," said agent Jeff Chilcoat. "For guys more on the fringe, you're several weeks behind someone else at that same position. I believe if you have two guys even up, and one guy has an extra three or four weeks in the system, that's an advantage."


Chilcoat was talking about the effect on one of his clients, defensive tackle Marcus Green, who signed with the New York Giants. Defensive end/linebacker Mike Kudla, who signed as a free agent with the Steelers, faces the same battle.


"I'll have my playbook and I'll have a chance to learn things, but I won't be able to work on a one-on-one basis," said Kudla, who is allowed to attend the Steelers' first camp next weekend, then nothing else until OSU exams end on June 8.


Kudla, who spends the time working out on campus, isn't complaining. It's a Buckeye fact of life. "Every guy goes through it," Kudla said. "It's part of the process."


Fifth-year players are exempt from the rule since their class already graduated. So, OSU free agents Ryan Hamby with the Cincinnati Bengals and Josh Huston with the Chicago Bears won't miss anything.
Though sometimes assumed to be an NCAA mandate, the NCAA has no connection to the agreement. It came about through the powerful AFCA when college football coaches grew tired of NFL teams prying players away for sometimes monthlong camps the moment they were drafted.
"It was a horrible amount of lost time in the classroom," said AFCA Executive Director Grant Teaff. "The youngsters would go to four or five minicamps, and they were flunking out left and right."


The limit on minicamps was the best way to change that. Now, the NCAA's Academic Progress Rate penalizes colleges for players who don't graduate while in bad academic standing.


"The truth of the matter is, the AFCA was concerned about this long before the NCAA stepped into it in any way with the APR concept," Teaff said.
But now that there's a different incentive for staying in school, maybe it's time for this 16-year-old rule to fade away. The few players and colleges affected could use their own judgment to work out missed class time.
The NFL's not inclined to abolish the rule. And neither is Teaff.


"We're very comfortable with the rule," he said. "But if Ohio State and 10 other institutions said we need to look at this, I'm sure we would."

[Thump]

Isn't OSU currently going through a transition to semesters?

[buckiprof]

Originally Posted by Thump

Isn't OSU currently going through a transition to semesters?

When I started OSU in Fall 1982, the talk then was that OSU was looking at changing to semesters.

[Thump]

Originally Posted by buckiprof

When I started OSU in Fall 1982, the talk then was that OSU was looking at changing to semesters.

My wife works at OSU and thought she said that it would be something like a 4 to 5 year process to do so and I thought they were currently in the middle of doing so.

I'll have to check with her again on that.

[Golferdow01]

Originally Posted by Thump

Isn't OSU currently going through a transition to semesters?

That's the word on the street, but I don't know if it will happen or not.

[ntd]

Originally Posted by Thump

My wife works at OSU and thought she said that it would be something like a 4 to 5 year process to do so and I thought they were currently in the middle of doing so.

I'll have to check with her again on that.

This too has been the talk for a long time...the latest speculation is because they bought some software from a company (SAP) that helped some schools transition to semesters...but the software is for all aspects of record keeping and has little or nothing to do with the actual transition.

No one I know in the registrar's office, and no one at the college I work at has heard anything from anyone that matters, and I'm sure there will be a committee years in advance, and then an announcement of a timeline, but it'll probably take 4 or 5 years to get a 4 or 5 year timeline arranged. my bet is by then that colleges will be transitioning to the quarter system anyway, so we'll stay put

[Steve19]

Having taught in both systems, I think the quarter system is superior.

[HineyBuck]

Quarter system works to our advantage in the fall. Players can focus on football exclusively until they get a couple games under their belt. No distractions with classes. No distractions with 30,000 co-eds. Etc. This benefits the entire team.

The disadvantage in the spring is to a relatively small group of graduating seniors who are NFL bound.

[Zurp]

Originally Posted by HineyBuck

Quarter system works to our advantage in the fall. Players can focus on football exclusively until they get a couple games under their belt. No distractions with classes. No distractions with 30,000 co-eds. Etc. This benefits the entire team.

The disadvantage in the spring is to a relatively small group of graduating seniors who are NFL bound.

What's the chance that a stud high school player, who we all know will be in the NFL after college, will say, "I'd rather NOT go somewhere that will force me to be behind my NFL classmates by a couple of weeks?"

[MililaniBuckeye]

Originally Posted by Zurp

What's the chance that a stud high school player, who we all know will be in the NFL after college, will say, "I'd rather NOT go somewhere that will force me to be behind my NFL classmates by a couple of weeks?"

I would say to him, "Good luck at (his choice other than tOSU) university".

[gregorylee]

As the article stated though, this will not affect the "studs". First day draftee's are an investment to the team. It is the guys who sign free agent contracts that are the ones that are in jeapordy of falling behind and that having an affect on making the team.

[buckeyefool]

Originally Posted by Thump

My wife works at OSU and thought she said that it would be something like a 4 to 5 year process to do so and I thought they were currently in the middle of doing so.

I'll have to check with her again on that.

If I remember right back in September the university trustee's voted to have the idea looked into to see how it could be done. The things I have read is once it would be approved it would take 4 to 5 years to do as you would have to re-write the critria for every class that is offered at the university to make it fit into the semester system. plus you would have to re-due the entier criteria for graduation also, which is something the university is doing right now anyway.

[Zurp]

Originally Posted by gregorylee

As the article stated though, this will not affect the "studs". First day draftee's are an investment to the team. It is the guys who sign free agent contracts that are the ones that are in jeapordy of falling behind and that having an affect on making the team.

Ok.. but is there a chance that a team might say, "Let's take a chance on Optimus Prime, WR from Semesters University, instead of Voltron Johnson, WR from Quarters State, because we'll get him into mini-camp 3 weeks sooner?"

I could see how a high school recruit MIGHT look into a semesters school simply because there's POTENTIAL that his draft pick (and how many millions of dollars?) could suffer if he picks a quarters school. Of course, if I were in charge of draft picks, semesters vs. quarters is about a billionth as important as the player's on-field performance and potential to grow in the NFL. But maybe in the later rounds, when the teams are just throwing darts at a dart-board to make their picks (don't give me that B.S. that those NFL teams have ever heard of those players), it might make a bit more difference.

[buckeyefool]

Originally Posted by Zurp

Ok.. but is there a chance that a team might say, "Let's take a chance on Optimus Prime, WR from Semesters University, instead of Voltron Johnson, WR from Quarters State, because we'll get him into mini-camp 3 weeks sooner?"

I could see how a high school recruit MIGHT look into a semesters school simply because there's POTENTIAL that his draft pick (and how many millions of dollars?) could suffer if he picks a quarters school. Of course, if I were in charge of draft picks, semesters vs. quarters is about a billionth as important as the player's on-field performance and potential to grow in the NFL. But maybe in the later rounds, when the teams are just throwing darts at a dart-board to make their picks (don't give me that B.S. that those NFL teams have ever heard of those players), it might make a bit more difference.

I heard that voltron had some character issues that would make his draft stock drop

[CleveBucks]

This is nothing new, and the fact that everybody and their brother loves to draft and/or sign Ohio State players makes this issue moot. It's strange how this has all of a sudden generated so much press.

fyi, I've also heard of nothing indicating a change to semesters anytime in the future. The new SIS (Student Information System) project has just started and that'll be a 4 year project in and of itself. I can't see another big change during or near the same time period.