[su_spacer size=”40″] A new NCAA academic requirement will go into effect in August 2016. Entering freshmen will be required to have a high school GPA of 2.3 or be forced to take an academic redshirt year. Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen suggests that one result of the academic redshirt year will be that some fully qualified freshman may be required to play before they are ready.
[su_spacer size=”40″] [su_quote style=”modern-light” cite=”AL.com” url=”http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2015/07/dan_mullens_radical_idea_to_ch.html”] “You might take a freshman and they are being punished for having better grades. They might be forced to play even though they needed a redshirt year,” Mullen says. “One of the thoughts I had was there’s a mandatory academic redshirt year for a certain group of people…well, if you are above that new standard you should get five years of eligibility. Why punish someone who might be forced to have to play?
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[su_spacer size=”10″] His idea is to counteract the NCAA’s requirement, set to go into effect August 2016, which requires prospective student-athletes to have a minimum GPA of 2.3. If the recruits can’t hit that 2.3 GPA figure but are above the old 2.0 scale, they’d be forced to take an academic redshirt year. The NCAA also raised its sliding scale based on GPA and SAT/ACT scores, and now requires recruits to have completed 10 of their 16 core classes before their senior year.
[su_spacer size=”10”] Mullen imagines a hypothetical scenario in which multiple players have to take an academic redshirt year, and how that’d force other guys into playing time before they might be ready. That’s the impetus behind his push to give those players an extra year of eligibility.
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