Corporal Funishment {l Wrote}:This is a difficult question, and naturally the board's intellectual lightweights have clearly spent less time wrestling with its intricacies than they have their own weiners.
The medical redshirt rule is 30% of games, so he's fine there, unless BC proves so dominant that the rest of the NCAA rolls over and abandons the season in mid-February (plausible, but not probable). The issue is eligibility clock. I'm not sure what the NCAA will make of his "non-qualifier" year in 2013-14. He non-qualified 1 year, then played 3 at Illinois State, then transferred here. The eligibility clock supposedly starts when you enroll full-time at a college. If that year doesn't count (board lawyers, make yourself useful for once), this is a simple medical redshirt application and he's fine. If that year counts, he's already on his 5th year and he would need a special hardship extension to play again. Supposedly, the standard here for obtaining a sixth year is that a player missed 2 years for reasons beyond his own control. The injury this year would count, the non-qualifer year is hard to say. Hawkins committed to Wichita State, decommitted without ever playing, and was made to sit out a year by the conference commissioner as an intra-conference transfer, in what contemporary media reports call a "unique ruling." As far as I can tell, Hawkins didn't practice with the team that year but he was a student at the school. I would wonder if that was done to preserve eligibility...?
So in conclusion, the issues are:
Did his eligibility clock start in 2013-14?
If no, we're fine. If yes, as I unfortunately suspect...
Will sitting out that 2013-14 year count as a hardship beyond his control?
If yes, we're fine. If no, as I unfortunately suspect, he's done.
There's also the issue of does he want to come back another year. I have no idea on that one but I would suspect it's tied to over- or underachievement this year and whether or not some of our draftable prospects decide to get themselves drafted and whether the coach is still the MAC's winningest.
This would be a fine place for the board insiders to chime in.
This is wrong.