I know they used to be year to year, but I thought I remember reading that schools including Arkansas were offering 4 year scholarships as part of the recruiting process to football players.
If it is, could a player, like Blake Johnson, who decides he does not have an athletic future decide a degree from the UA is more important and decide not to transfer?
I know he could be “strongly” encouraged to leave but I wonder if there would be a legal basis for remaining all 4 years if the university offered a “4 year scholarship”.
Don’t know exactly on the four year guarantee part, but I would think “Strongly encouraging” players to leave is not a good look for any jury deliberating on whether or not Players are “employees”, which is where the “4 year scholarship” came from.
The Power 5 conferences passed a rule that a kid on scholarship can’t be cut. You can’t take away his scholarship because he averages 30 yards a kick, or can’t get on the field at all.
But scholarship math tells you people have to leave by whatever means. Multiply 25 by four years is a lot more than 85, and that’s not even considering redshirts and the occasional walkon who gets a scholie. So you don’t take away the scholarship, but you maybe tell them their chances of seeing any playing time next year are zero. And to be blunt, Blake Johnson largely did that to himself, scholarship crunch or not.
Want to slow the process of running kids off? Raise the scholarship limit to 100. Even then it would still happen because of redshirts, medical hardships and walkons. Probably would take a 120-scholarship limit to stop it entirely. Chances of that happening? Zero.
Sixty years ago, scholarships were guaranteed for four years. The book Meat on the Hoof by Gary Shaw details the brutal steps Texass took under Darrell Royal to (Shaw said) get him to give up one of those guaranteed scholarships. EOE always claimed Shaw either exaggerated or made it up completely, but as usual I suspect the truth is somewhere in between.
You can’t cut him, but you can tell him he is not going to play if he stays here.
Different route to the finish.