Jim Harbaugh's Job (And That Of His Cohorts) Just Got Much Harder

With the NCAA granting an extra year of eligibility, rosters moving forward will be unmanageable.

Matthew O'Haren-USA TODAY Sports

The Big Ten may or may not play football in 2020 (or the winter of 2021) but whenever the conference suits up again, every FBS athlete will be granted an extra year of eligibility, the NCAA announced in August. 

That announcement is a win for the players themselves, but it is an utter nightmare for coaches that must navigate future rosters and universities that must pay for it. Some will find a way, some won't, and it will - at least in the short term - dramatically impact the college football landscape. 

Michigan currently has nine players in their final season of eligibility: RB Chris Evans, FB/TE Ben Mason, WR Nico Collins, TE Nick Eubanks, DE Kwity Paye, DT Carlo Kemp, S Brad Hawkins, PK Quinn Nordin and P Brad Robbins. In theory, all nine could opt to return for the 2021 fall season. Some will, but Evans, Collins and Paye probably won't, and the Wolverines could also lose Eubanks. 

Still, if all nine decided to return for one more year, and the rest of their teammates did too, the Wolverines would feature 102 scholarship athletes in 2021, including 60 players (21 current verbal commitments) that have freshman eligibility. 

The 17 extra scholarships will cost U-M about $600,000, a figure that won't bankrupt the Maize and Blue (or shouldn't but who knows for sure coming off a pandemic year), but will likely crush smaller athletic departments in Group of 5 conferences. 

Those conferences, and many programs in the Power 5, will have to make the hard choice of whether to honor the extra year of eligibility or cut those student-athletes loose, knowing they can't pay for it. That could lead to an influx of transfers from Group of 5 to Power 5, but where are they going to go when rosters at the Power 5 level are also pouring over the dam? 

Regular attrition would cull that 102 by 10-15, but will players leave a program like Michigan when they have nowhere to go? There will be a few that just give up football (maybe more than before because of COVID-19's impact) but rosters will be over-inflated for 2021, and for 2022 and 2023 and 2024. 

In fact, it could take five years, until 2025, for normalcy to return to college rosters. 

In 2022, for instance, if every player with eligibility currently stayed with the U-M program, Michigan would have 93 scholarship athletes before a 2022 recruiting class. Figure in 20 or so recruits and it's up to 113, and now an additional $1,000,000 in scholarship allocation. 

Again, there will be attrition but over-the-85-man-max limit will be a constant for programs and coaching staffs each of the next four years. 

In 2021, here are 60 players that will have freshman eligibility for Michigan:

QB: Cade McNamara, Dan Villari & JJ McCarthy

RB: Blake Corum

WR: Roman Wilson, AJ Henning, Xavier Worthy, Andrel Anthony, Christian Dixon & Markus Allen 

TE: Matthew Hibner & Louis Hansen

OL: Zak Zinter, Reece Atteberry, Jeffrey Persi, Nolan Rumler, Zach Carpenter, Trente Jones, Jack Stewart, Karsen Barnhart, Trevor Keegan, Giovanni El-Hadi, Greg Crippen, Raheem Anderson & Tristin Bounds

DE: Braiden McGregor, Gabe Newburg, Mike Morris, Dominick Guidice, Tyler Guy & Quinton Sommerville

DT: Kris Jenkins & Mazi Smith

ILB: Cornell Wheeler, Osman Savage, Nikhai Hill-Green, Kalel Mullings, Charles Thomas, Casey Phinney, Junior Colson & Taylor McLaurin

OLB: David Ojabo & Jalyn Herrell 

Viper: William Mohan, Joey Velazquez, Jayden Hood & KeChaun Bennett

CB: Andre Seldon, D. Green-Warren, DJ Turner II, Jalen Perry, George Johnson, Eamonn Dennis, Rod Moore & Ja’Den McBurrows

S: Jordan Morant, Makari Page, RJ Moten & Quinten Johnson

ST: Tommy Dolan