From The Oklahoman's Sunday paper, Berry Tramel column on Mayfield's options to get a fourth year of eligibility. According to Tramel his best bet is to "shame" Texas Tech.
http://newsok.com/article/5475949
Could Baker Mayfield transfer and get his fourth season elsewhere?
By Berry Tramel
Baker Mayfield's quest continues for a fourth year of college football. He has options in trying to be ruled eligible for the 2017 season.
* The courts. A good old-fashioned American lawsuit always stands a chance. If you can sue McDonald's because the coffee's too hot, seems like you could sue the Big 12 for stripping a year's eligibility from a non-scholarship transfer.
* More appeals. Nothing appears to restrict Mayfield or OU from again seeking relief from the Big 12 faculty reps. That board last year denied Mayfield's appeal that he shouldn't be subjected to the Big 12's rule on intraconference transfers.
* Shame. Take to the public marketplace and try to shame Texas Tech or the Big 12 or the NCAA, in this age of athlete empowerment, into swallowing hard and showing mercy.
Shame is Mayfield's best play. And here's why. Irony. It's conceivable that Baker Mayfield in 2017 could become eligible to quarterback Wisconsin or Auburn or Oregon or North Carolina. Anywhere except the school (OU) and the conference (Big 12) in which he wants to quarterback.
The NCAA allows players with a degree to transfer and play immediately. That rule comes with a couple of stipulations; the new school has to have a graduate program unavailable at a player's previous school, and the player can't have already transferred from a four-year school.
But the NCAA has a waiver process on the latter. If the school from which the player graduated signs off, the NCAA routinely allows transfers to transfer again. Heck, we've seen that happen twice in recent months involving OSU players.
Quarterback Daxx Garman began at Arizona, transferred to OSU, was on the team for three years, graduated and transferred to Maryland, where he played last season. Basketball player Chris Olivier began at Northern Iowa, transferred to Eastern Illinois, graduated and transferred to OSU.
Both times, an NCAA waiver was granted, and a source in NCAA compliance said it's relatively simple.
You don't think Mayfield could get a waiver? You don't think OU would sign off? Mayfield wouldn't be transferring because he wanted to. He'd be transferring because he had to.
Mayfield says he has no interest in transferring in 2017, if his Big 12 eligibility is exhausted but his NCAA eligibility is not. I asked him down in Fort Lauderdale about such a plan, and he dismissed it. “I'm a Sooner,” he said.
James Mayfield, Baker's father, said playing at OU in 2016 and 2017 is his son's goal.
“Bake's not interested in other options,” James Mayfield said. “He wants to play at OU.” And that goes for questions about turning pro after the 2016 season. The NFL Draft is not Plan B.
“Every query I get, I say, ‘hell yeah, he's coming back,'” James Mayfield said. “He's coming back until they run him off.”
But that's the problem. Baker Mayfield could be run off after 2016, which would be just his third college season. Mayfield forfeited a fourth year when he transferred within the conference, from Texas Tech to OU.
And what a quagmire for Big 12 football. A league fighting to stay on equal footing with the other power conferences could be shipping its best ballplayer, a difference-making quarterback, to another league.
The Big 12 transfer rule is grounded in good policy. A conference should do all it can to discourage athletes from jumping to another school within the league. That kind of familiarity breeds resentment on and off the field of play. Heck, we've seen that with some of the Mayfield/Tech drama over the last 16 months.
The difference with Mayfield, of course, was his walkon status. He was non-scholarship at Tech, and winning the quarterback job in August of his freshman year in Lubbock only makes for a more remarkable story.
It just feels like a walkon should be different. In this day of routine discussion on the exploitation of athletes, limiting the options of an athlete who doesn't even have the standard reward, a scholarship, is counter to the NCAA's claims.
Heck, all kinds of NCAA examples say a walkon is different.
Mayfield's initial appeal to be eligible immediately at OU in 2014 was based on that non-scholarship status. A waiver to the NCAA's general transfer rule, which requires sitting out a season for football players transferring to a Division I-A school, says a non-recruited, non-scholarship athlete can transfer and be eligible immediately, if the original school doesn't object.
Of course, Texas Tech objected. OU's appeal was denied.
So Mayfield's quest for that fourth year continues.
A lawsuit seems a bad idea. That could drag out long past Mayfield's eligibility. Appeal? Tech has little reason to cave; it just wants the Baker Mayfield story to go away as quickly as possible and it wants no part of having to play against Mayfield potentially a third time in 2017. The Big 12 is caught in the middle; if it supports OU, it does so against Tech. If it supports Tech, it does so against OU. And like we said, the Big 12 rule exists for a reason.
So shame is the best plan. In this age of athletes' rights gaining a bigger and bigger stage, public outrage could cause the NCAA to get involved. Not with some ruling, but with some backroom arm-twisting. Some closed-door meeting in which NCAA officials say enough bad public relations, make this go away and make Baker Mayfield happy.
http://newsok.com/article/5475949
Could Baker Mayfield transfer and get his fourth season elsewhere?
By Berry Tramel
Baker Mayfield's quest continues for a fourth year of college football. He has options in trying to be ruled eligible for the 2017 season.
* The courts. A good old-fashioned American lawsuit always stands a chance. If you can sue McDonald's because the coffee's too hot, seems like you could sue the Big 12 for stripping a year's eligibility from a non-scholarship transfer.
* More appeals. Nothing appears to restrict Mayfield or OU from again seeking relief from the Big 12 faculty reps. That board last year denied Mayfield's appeal that he shouldn't be subjected to the Big 12's rule on intraconference transfers.
* Shame. Take to the public marketplace and try to shame Texas Tech or the Big 12 or the NCAA, in this age of athlete empowerment, into swallowing hard and showing mercy.
Shame is Mayfield's best play. And here's why. Irony. It's conceivable that Baker Mayfield in 2017 could become eligible to quarterback Wisconsin or Auburn or Oregon or North Carolina. Anywhere except the school (OU) and the conference (Big 12) in which he wants to quarterback.
The NCAA allows players with a degree to transfer and play immediately. That rule comes with a couple of stipulations; the new school has to have a graduate program unavailable at a player's previous school, and the player can't have already transferred from a four-year school.
But the NCAA has a waiver process on the latter. If the school from which the player graduated signs off, the NCAA routinely allows transfers to transfer again. Heck, we've seen that happen twice in recent months involving OSU players.
Quarterback Daxx Garman began at Arizona, transferred to OSU, was on the team for three years, graduated and transferred to Maryland, where he played last season. Basketball player Chris Olivier began at Northern Iowa, transferred to Eastern Illinois, graduated and transferred to OSU.
Both times, an NCAA waiver was granted, and a source in NCAA compliance said it's relatively simple.
You don't think Mayfield could get a waiver? You don't think OU would sign off? Mayfield wouldn't be transferring because he wanted to. He'd be transferring because he had to.
Mayfield says he has no interest in transferring in 2017, if his Big 12 eligibility is exhausted but his NCAA eligibility is not. I asked him down in Fort Lauderdale about such a plan, and he dismissed it. “I'm a Sooner,” he said.
James Mayfield, Baker's father, said playing at OU in 2016 and 2017 is his son's goal.
“Bake's not interested in other options,” James Mayfield said. “He wants to play at OU.” And that goes for questions about turning pro after the 2016 season. The NFL Draft is not Plan B.
“Every query I get, I say, ‘hell yeah, he's coming back,'” James Mayfield said. “He's coming back until they run him off.”
But that's the problem. Baker Mayfield could be run off after 2016, which would be just his third college season. Mayfield forfeited a fourth year when he transferred within the conference, from Texas Tech to OU.
And what a quagmire for Big 12 football. A league fighting to stay on equal footing with the other power conferences could be shipping its best ballplayer, a difference-making quarterback, to another league.
The Big 12 transfer rule is grounded in good policy. A conference should do all it can to discourage athletes from jumping to another school within the league. That kind of familiarity breeds resentment on and off the field of play. Heck, we've seen that with some of the Mayfield/Tech drama over the last 16 months.
The difference with Mayfield, of course, was his walkon status. He was non-scholarship at Tech, and winning the quarterback job in August of his freshman year in Lubbock only makes for a more remarkable story.
It just feels like a walkon should be different. In this day of routine discussion on the exploitation of athletes, limiting the options of an athlete who doesn't even have the standard reward, a scholarship, is counter to the NCAA's claims.
Heck, all kinds of NCAA examples say a walkon is different.
Mayfield's initial appeal to be eligible immediately at OU in 2014 was based on that non-scholarship status. A waiver to the NCAA's general transfer rule, which requires sitting out a season for football players transferring to a Division I-A school, says a non-recruited, non-scholarship athlete can transfer and be eligible immediately, if the original school doesn't object.
Of course, Texas Tech objected. OU's appeal was denied.
So Mayfield's quest for that fourth year continues.
A lawsuit seems a bad idea. That could drag out long past Mayfield's eligibility. Appeal? Tech has little reason to cave; it just wants the Baker Mayfield story to go away as quickly as possible and it wants no part of having to play against Mayfield potentially a third time in 2017. The Big 12 is caught in the middle; if it supports OU, it does so against Tech. If it supports Tech, it does so against OU. And like we said, the Big 12 rule exists for a reason.
So shame is the best plan. In this age of athletes' rights gaining a bigger and bigger stage, public outrage could cause the NCAA to get involved. Not with some ruling, but with some backroom arm-twisting. Some closed-door meeting in which NCAA officials say enough bad public relations, make this go away and make Baker Mayfield happy.
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