The NCAA’s decision to grant James Nnaji four years of eligibility to play college basketball despite being a 2023 NBA first-round draft pick has sparked plenty of discussion and debate over whether the approach truly meshes with NCAA rules. The simple reality is that NCAA rules have crumbled in recent years under the weight of multiple legal challenges.
Not surprisingly, the NCAA is inching away from the notion that a player who has been drafted by an American professional sports league but who hasn’t signed a contract can use any remaining eligibility.
NCAA president Charlie Baker posted this statement on Twitter earlier this afternoon: “The [NCAA] has not and will not grant eligibility to any prospective or returning student-athletes who have signed an [NBA] contract (including a two-way contract). As schools are increasingly recruiting individuals with international league experience, the NCAA is exercising discretion in applying the actual and necessary expenses bylaw to ensure that prospective student-athletes with experience in American basketball leagues are not at a disadvantage compared to their international counterparts. Rules have long permitted schools to enroll and play individuals with no prior collegiate experience midyear. While the NCAA has prevailed on the vast majority of eligibility-related lawsuits, recent outlier decisions enjoining the NCAA on a nationwide basis from enforcing rules that have been on the books for decades -- without even having a trial -- are wildly destabilizing. I will be working with DI leaders in the weeks ahead to protect college basketball from these misguided attempts to destroy this American institution.”
Setting aside the politico-legal gobbledygook, Baker’s statement implies that, if a player drafted by the NBA (like Nnaji) has never signed an NBA contract, he’ll keep his remaining eligibility to play college basketball.
The implication arguably applies, by extension, to college football. If a player has been drafted by the NFL but hasn’t signed an NFL contract, why shouldn’t he be allowed to return to college football?
As a result, why shouldn’t every college football coach be ready to immediately recruit the next Shedeur Sanders, who plunges in the draft and who could be inclined to accept a significant NIL package to spend another year at the college level?
That’s what Baylor did with Nnaji. Coach Scott Drew recently explained that pursuing a player like Nnaji is fair game in a world of unfair rules that are susceptible to legal challenge: “Until we get to collective bargaining, I don’t think we can come up with rules that are agreeable or enforceable. . . . We’re always going to adapt to put our program in the best position to be successful.”
It’s a simple proposition. The NCAA is basically a fictional entity that was created to justify collusion among independent colleges and universities. The do’s and don’ts were all about controlling labor costs (“we’d like to give you money to play here, but the NCAA rules just won’t allow it”), and avoiding a situation in which a bidding war makes it harder to balance budgets.
The reckoning has arrived. The rules have been exposed as antitrust violations. The NCAA, which has lost multiple key cases on that point, has little choice but to back off or face yet another L.
As to Nnaji, the NCAA blinked. If Sanders had decided to play at Colorado or another school in 2025, the NCAA likely would have blinked.
Baker’s statement says it all. The fact that a player has been drafted means nothing. The player can return to school. As Nnaji has done.
But here’s the catch, as it relates to the NFL. The possibility of a drafted player returning to college already has been contemplated, via the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
From Article 6, Section 6: “Return to College. If any college football player who becomes eligible for the Draft prior to exhausting his college football eligibility through participation is drafted by an NFL Club, and returns to college, the drafting Club’s exclusive right to negotiate and sign a Player Contract with such player shall continue through the date of the Draft that follows the last season in which the player was eligible to participate in college football, and thereafter the player shall be treated and the Club shall have such exclusive rights as if he were drafted in such Draft by such Club (or assignee Club).”
This means that, if Shedeur Sanders had decided to go back to college football for 2025, the Browns would have retained his rights through the 2026 draft, with Sanders being treated next year as if he’d been picked in the same spot in the next draft.
But Sanders would have gotten paid a lot more for 2025 than he’s earning with the Browns. Then, he could have (in theory) skipped 2026 and re-entered the draft in 2027, funding his year off with the money he made in the extra year of college football.
Regardless of whether anyone does it, the option exists. It’s among the various business decisions a football player can make, in an age where — finally — college football players have the right to make real business decisions.
