Now that the NCAA has given all fall sports athletes the opportunity to play this year without losing a year of eligibility, let’s look at five seniors we hope return in 2021.
In the latest unprecedented twist in the 2020 NCAA landscape, this year’s athletes in the fall sports are now being given a free pass. That’s because they are going to be allowed to play in as many games as they wish this fall and not lose a year of eligibility.
"“All fall sport student-athletes will receive both an additional year of eligibility and an additional year in which to complete it,” the NCAA said in a release. “Student-athletes who do not enroll full time during the 2020 fall term have flexibility in the progress-toward-degree requirements that must be met for eligibility in future terms.”"
That is great news for a Texas Tech program that will have 17 seniors on this year’s roster, all of whom look likely to be in the program’s two-deep. And being as most of them are considered far from NFL Draft locks, they may all decide to come back for another year in Lubbock.
Regardless of how many decide to come back, they will not count against the limit of 85 scholarships that the NCAA allows football teams to award. But for every senior that comes back in 2021, there will be an extra scholarship that Tech has to pay for, a financial issue that could be exacerbated by the revenue shortfall that is certain to come from this strange 2020-21 academic year. (Of course, a program as well-funded as Tech will not have as many issues in paying for its extra seniors in 2021 as schools in smaller conferences will.)
This unusual circumstance could also yield some strange realities next year. For instance, should WR Seth Collins decide to return in 2021, he could be a seventh-year senior after he was granted a medical redshirt for the 2017 season and took a redshirt last year while sitting out the entire season with a broken collar bone. That would equal the 7-year career of Texas Tech offensive lineman Tony Morales who was awarded two medical redshirts while a member of the Red Raiders.
Then there will be the likelihood that QB Alan Bowman could play the 2021 season as a redshirt sophomore. After redshirting in 2019, he enters this year as a sophomore and that won’t change next season given this new rule. Thus, instead of entering his senior year next fall, he will still have three years of eligibility remaining when next season begins. That would potentially give him an opportunity to shatter every school passing record.
But for today, let’s look at some players that could extend their college careers by another year in 2021. Here are the five seniors we would most like to see return to Texas Tech in 2021.