Week 1 of the college football season is here and there’s still an ongoing fight over NFL players who are looking for an additional year of college eligibility.
Currently, the matter is still up for the courts to decide. If it were up to at least one NFL general manager, however, the entire issue would be squashed.
No punches pulled
Indianapolis Colts general manager Chris Ballard was asked Tuesday if his organization had any players who mentioned exploring a return to college. The veteran executive did not hold back in his response.
“No. It’s the stupidest s— I’ve ever heard,” Ballard said, laughing. “I know I’ll catch crap for this. Your entire life, you fight to get up to the NFL, but now we’re gonna go back. OK, that makes a lot of freaking sense.”
Ballard is not the only GM in the AFC South to weigh in on this topic. Nick Caserio of the Houston Texans said “the whole thing is kind of ridiculous,” but admitted it doesn’t necessarily impact what the front office or coaching staff has to do.
“It doesn’t necessarily materially impact kind of what we’re doing specific to training camp and those types of things,” Caserio explained. “If they are in college, if they go back to college, you just evaluate them as if you would through the college lens, through the college process. We didn’t have any players that fell under that restraining order so it wasn’t really going to affect us.”
The latest on fifth-year players
LSU head coach Lane Kiffin has earned the ire of his constituents for his decision to sign NFL players, while the Big Ten and SEC have barred such players from suiting up. The SEC even says it will fight a court order from a Baton Rouge judge that forbids it from punishing programs that bring in pros.
“Every one of them was emphatic about, ‘If they can help us win, bring ’em,’” Kiffin said Monday about how his team feels about the issue, according to ESPN. “We understand we have a team that’s practiced together and worked together all offseason, but one of them said, ‘Hey, this is how it works at the next level, and this is how the real world works.’ So that made me feel a little better in the struggle and being torn back and forth.”
What a place for college football to be on the eve of the season.
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