THE NCAA MADE IT’S DECISION BUT NOW WHAT HAPPENS….
Late Tuesday afternoon the NCAA decided to allow spring sports athletes to get an extra year of eligibility to makeup for the lost 2020 season. This decision is first of many that will need to be made in the coming days and weeks. Currently men’s lacrosse have 12.7 scholarships to spread throughout the team. The women have 12 scholarships available. The NCAA said schools could exceed those limits to accommodate returning seniors but they are not required to provide aid to them. Administrators will have to decide if they will allow coaches at their school to go over the limit.
Currently the Ivy and Patriot Leagues do not allow students to play a fifth year at their schools. If those leagues continue to abide by that rule players like Jeff Teat and TD Ierlan will have to decide whether they want to continue playing at another school. Recruiting will also be affected by this because the landscape of the school they committed to may have changed completely.
Grant Ament from Penn State has already announced that he will be heading to the PLL. Next year would’ve been his 6th decided he was done with the grind of college lacrosse. Also he didn’t want to risk another injury. He said he has encouraged his fellow seniors to come back for another season.
I think the big schools will be at an advantage because they are more likely to take on additional scholarships and have graduate schools for a variety of majors that would welcome transfers. The next few months just got a lot more interesting in the college lacrosse world and I’m excited to see what happens,
