Statement on Professional-Return Eligibility

The College Football Governance Council holds that an individual who has signed a professional football contract, been listed on a professional roster, or entered a professional draft without properly withdrawing should not be eligible to return to competition in college football.

This past week, the Big Ten, Southeastern, Big 12, and Atlantic Coast conferences each reached that conclusion independently, and the Mountain West has since done the same. The Council commends those decisions. Five rules, with differing scopes and, where published, differing penalties, is convergence, not governance.

Convergence does not withstand a court order. A Dallas County temporary restraining order already paused the SEC’s rule (Judge Hoffman, 27 August, naming the NCAA, the SEC, and Commissioner Sankey; hearing 11 September). A Louisiana order followed (Judge Jorden, 28 August, SEC and Sankey; hearing 3 September). Neither is a ruling on the merits. Those orders do not write a standard for the conferences that have not acted, and they offer no shared defense to the ones that have.

The Council invites every conference, whether or not it has acted this week, to join a common professional-return standard. Complementary to the NCAA and the College Sports Commission, not a replacement.

College football has become a business of extraordinary scale. It cannot be governed one conference at a time.