http://espn.go.com/college-sports/st...ility-freshmen

For? Against?

I have mixed feelings. I can see pros and cons.

I can not see only one or two of the so-called P-5 conferences adopting this at some point as that would lead to a huge disadvantage in terms of recruiting against the other high-majors (including the BE in basketball).

Either all the high-powered conferences do it, or none will do it.

I also question whether legally the conferences can apply this to only football and men's basketball. Seems discriminatory, especially in terms of gender. Why men's basketball but not women's? Also, why not soccer, volleyball, etc? Seems ripe for a law suit os some kind.

Assuming players would still have four years of eligibility after sitting out a year, very possible many/most football and basketball players would not want to stay a fifth year although that doesn't seem to be happening all that often in football. An awful lot of fifth-year seniors who red-shirted as frosh.

Maybe there would be a whole lot more grad transfers for that fifth year.

One thing for certain - it would certainly have an impact on the one-and-done hoops players. My guess is that many would go overseas for a year if the NBA kept its rule in tact.

Many of us are old enough to recall pre-1972 when freshmen could play on a freshmen team but not on the "varsity." We had to wait a year to see Brute Force, the Dream, Chones, McNeil, and Luke. I admit it would be hard to do that again.

Thoughts?