NCAA Grants Virginia Football Players Extra Year of Eligibility

The decision comes in response to an on-campus shooting that killed three football players and injured two others.

Editors’ note: This story contains details of a mass shooting and gun violence.

Virginia announced Wednesday that the NCAA will allow players whose college eligibility lapsed after the 2022 season to earn an extra year of playing time.

Carla Williams, the Cavaliers’ athletic director, confirmed the NCAA’s decision, according to The Daily Progress. The NCAA’s decision comes in response to an on-campus shooting that killed wide receivers Lavel Davis Jr. and Devin Chandler and linebacker D’Sean Perry and injured two other students. 

The additional year of eligibility will have an impact on graduate players as well as fifth- and sixth-year seniors on the team. However, UVA players like sixth-year senior Anthony Johnson and fifth-year senior Billy Kemp IV will not be eligible for the extra year because they have already declared for the 2023 NFL draft, per the Progress.

Beyond the NCAA’s decision to grant Virginia players an extra year of eligibility, the university announced Tuesday that Davis, Chandler and Perry will receive posthumous degrees, according to UVA Today.

Cavaliers running back Michael Hollins was hospitalized for a week after the shooting and was discharged on Nov. 28. Marlee Morgan, the other student injured in the incident, was also recently released from the hospital.

Suspect Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. was taken into custody Nov. 14 and charged with three counts of second-degree murder and three counts of using a handgun in commission of a felony, according to law enforcement. He is being held without bail in a Charlottesville jail.

Virginia finished the 2022 season with a 3–7 mark, though the team did not play in its final two games, against Coastal Carolina and Virginia Tech, in the wake of the shooting.