Latest / The BIG LIFE / Top Rankings, Surprising Wins, and NCAA Changes All in Women's Soccer!

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Top Rankings, Surprising Wins, and NCAA Changes All in Women's Soccer! · The BIG LIFE

0:04
Hey everyone and welcome back to the big life podcast jordan i am so excited
0:09
to be here with you miss number one in the rpi rankings so let's talk a bit
0:16
about that yeah yeah we i mean this is,
0:21
all like absolutely insane obviously you've been successful over the past couple
0:25
years but like Like the Michigan State I committed to was ranked like 200 and
0:30
something, maybe 300 and something. Like we were bottom of the bottom.
0:34
Like name a school, they were above us. The fact that we are now ranked number
0:38
one in RPI, I think I get to appreciate it a little bit more after committing to them,
0:43
knowing that this wasn't going to be the reality and now working our way through
0:47
it and being able to see all the change we've made and the way the program has grown over the years.
0:52
But absolutely amazing thing to wake up to. I am a little bit not surprised
0:57
because we've played good teams, but there was an RPI change where it used to
1:01
be that a tie, I believe, was like half a win and half a loss.
1:06
Now it only accounts for a third of the win. So it doesn't help you as much.
1:11
Ties hurt you more than they used to in previous years. And we do have two ties.
1:15
So even with that, it's great to see. I mean, it's an amazing feeling being
1:20
number one in anything. So super happy about that.
1:23
I'm so happy for you. I'm going to humble you a little bit as I educate people what RPI is.
1:29
For those who don't know, RPI is the magical math that goes on behind the scenes
1:34
of helping create a ranking.
1:36
The one thing that RPI doesn't have is the quote-unquote eye test.
1:41
However, it is a huge, huge accomplishment to be on top with your number one ranking.
1:46
I would highly speculate. I'm pretty sure the polls already came out this week.
1:50
Michigan State is sitting number Number five, the United Soccer Coaches poll,
1:54
which is typically the one that's respected by the NCAA.
1:58
So fifth in the nation, nothing to put your nose bone on.
2:02
Won an RPI, and we'll see kind of as the season keeps going where that trajectory can turn.
2:07
So, so, so happy for you, though. That's really, truly an amazing accomplishment
2:11
as someone who played against Michigan State when they weren't necessarily the
2:15
Michigan State that is today.
2:17
Today like prep a scout for us I feel like it
2:20
was just one of those we're actually ranked
2:23
number four in NCAA rankings so thank
2:27
you thank you I do I I deserve I humbled you you deserve to humble me it's all
2:31
right it's all right it's fine but other big moments in the big life and this
2:36
week caught us off guard in some good and bad ways first up we projected last
2:41
week we thought that Ohio State Indiana was going to be a close 1-0 win for Ohio State or a tie.
2:46
It ended up being a 3-0 win for Ohio State. So I think that is a really big
2:51
statement win for Ohio State as they go forward.
2:54
I think they're now ranked 20th going
2:56
into this next week. So really good rankings coming from the Big Ten.
3:00
And on top of that, the other weird fact, because I feel like it keeps coming
3:03
up, last week we talked about how Indiana and Minnesota had ties with Brown.
3:08
And so we're We're like, wow, those are really good ties. You know,
3:10
that'll be interesting.
3:11
Ohio State then played Brown on Sunday and won 2-0. So I think it shows a lot
3:15
about what the Buckeyes are up to and what they're going to bring into this Big Ten season.
3:19
Absolutely. I thought it was. I didn't realize that teams were playing non-conference
3:23
games again on Sunday because the conference game started Thursday.
3:27
We just had a bye week, so we didn't play anyone on Sunday.
3:30
I figured that's how everyone was going about it, just assumed.
3:33
So when I saw that they played non-conference games after playing conference
3:37
games, I thought that was a little bit interesting. Has that happened before?
3:41
That's my knowledge. I really don't know. Obviously, just not being directly
3:45
in the Iowa program anymore, what changed.
3:47
But it has never happened before that we played non-conference opponent after
3:51
playing a conference opponent.
3:52
But it did happen for the Iowa Hawkeyes this week as they won their rivalry
3:57
week, as they were calling it.
3:59
They had the border battle between Iowa and Nebraska, which is probably our
4:03
biggest rivalry, we would say, in the Big Ten.
4:06
And Iowa came out the victors, winning 2-0 at home. And then they went on the
4:10
road to Iowa State, which is the game that every year is the game everyone circles.
4:15
There's a little, you know, history behind it in the sense of Iowa,
4:19
Iowa State compete in every sport that they have, you know, compatible every
4:23
year. And they call it the Cyhawk series.
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And the women's soccer program always kicks off the Cyhawk series is where the
4:29
first teams always play.
4:30
This year football actually played first and we're not going to talk about the
4:34
results of that but Iowa then beat Iowa State this year in women's soccer as
4:39
well so just very interesting as we had a rivalry week for the first time ever in Iowa history.
4:44
Awesome. You know, I would suspect that it's because we had those couple extra
4:48
days in preseason that that then allowed you to have an extra bye week,
4:52
which then you just schedule games on Sunday. Now that I'm really thinking about it. Big brain.
4:58
But moving forward, Penn State, big win against Michigan, 6-0.
5:03
We talked about the Michigan possible comeback. This is not a great look for
5:08
them. 6-0 is definitely a statement win by Penn State.
5:11
So what are your thoughts with this Michigan team as they face this loss?
5:16
Yeah, like I said, I feel bad because I feel like we've talked about them a
5:20
lot, but I do feel like in a lot of ways they've been a story of Big Ten.
5:24
And at the end of the day, you're moving now week by week. You are hanging die
5:29
for your life by a thread.
5:31
You're just praying to make it into the conference tournament and praying to keep moving forward.
5:35
I think in a lot of regards, probably this Michigan Michigan team knew that
5:41
it was a long shot potentially to steal points from Penn State.
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So my hope is like, obviously they lost big and you never want to see that,
5:47
but is there really a difference between a one zero loss and a six zero loss?
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So hopefully they can learn from it, regroup, and then really take the points
5:54
from the table in that mid table block.
5:56
And that'll help control their destiny a bit more, but that's really now every
6:00
game you don't have throwaways anymore. more.
6:03
Absolutely. But my concern with this Michigan team would be for a team that
6:08
struggled so much was possibly on the up and up taking that momentum and then
6:12
to get crushed so badly what this will do to their confidence moving forward.
6:16
Hopefully they can bounce back again. But six nothing's a definitely a statement
6:20
one, like I said, by Penn State.
6:22
And then with the big news out of this and let me tell you, my jaw hit the floor
6:26
audible gasp when I read this.
6:28
I did not realize quite how bad it was, but Purdue gets their first conference win in three years. I.
6:38
I'm shocked. I genuinely, when I learned this fact, I couldn't believe it.
6:44
I fact checked it about three times.
6:46
It was absolutely baffling to me.
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And so I was quite honestly, I was very happy I got Jordan's raw reaction when
6:52
I told her the news, but I didn't realize Purdue had been struggling that bad.
6:58
And I think the reason is, you know, you look back and Purdue was an extremely
7:03
successful team in 2021.
7:05
They had some standout players there. I believe they were at least pushing for
7:09
the Big Ten title, if not winning the conference title that year. It was big.
7:14
And then I guess it crumbled.
7:17
And looking back, Purdue had zero
7:19
conference win the 2022 season and zero conference wins the 2023 season.
7:24
And I think games against Purdue tend to be competitive.
7:28
Last year, we did go on the road, and I know Iowa won big. But the year before,
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I know we were one of the teams that tied them.
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And they have a very good foundation. So I did not realize that they were that bad.
7:39
But they got the win on the road against Northwestern. And yeah,
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it was baffling to me when I found out.
7:44
Yeah. Yeah, I think you put it like it was never like a huge scoring game.
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We weren't going into Purdue being like, this is a game everyone's going to
7:53
get on the field for, like a blog game or anything like that.
7:56
They were always fairly competitive. And this was...
8:00
My first choice in a school originally, like I was like, I want to go to Purdue
8:04
so bad. They were a great team, a great program.
8:06
I didn't realize quite how badly they fell off. So when I talked about Michigan
8:10
State kind of being down and out when I committed and now we're number one,
8:13
Purdue was number one and now they're kind of down and out.
8:16
So things worked out for me in the best way possible, I guess.
8:19
But I'm shocked to hear three years.
8:22
Like I, that's crazy. Absolutely. And I think we're going to,
8:26
that offsets the podcast curse that she did. There we go.
8:31
We're we're back to even absolutely and
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you know there's so many other big headlines i feel like in the ncaa
8:37
we cover the big life it's the big 10 that's what we care about
8:40
but i know i think looking forward once we talk about rpi what this means you
8:46
know i know wake forest took down number two virginia i know that there's been
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shuffling around that top five block you know we got michigan state creeping
8:55
in at number four right now so it'll be very excited to stay tuned with a bunch
8:58
of women's soccer news as I think anything on any given day it's proven that
9:03
any team can and has the possibility to win and that's been shown all season
9:07
throughout all of division one it's game time right there is no more days off
9:12
no more easy games conference play is here and it is,
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intense time I'm excited excited to get into it you know starting to get a little
9:20
bit cooler getting that real fall weather going too it's it's feeling good okay
9:25
anyway to our interview We are so,
9:29
so lucky to be joined by Rick Allen,
9:31
who is the owner of The Informed Athlete.
9:34
And what The Informed Athlete strives to do is, as Rick will put it,
9:38
he was in NCAA eligibility for 25 years and has now started a company for the last 16 years.
9:46
Inform athletes about their rights, their powers, and the basis of NCAA eligibility
9:52
as it can be a crazy world in so many different regards.
9:56
And as you know, I think everyone is kind of staring at the news of what is
10:01
going to come with NCAA athletics this year. What are all these changes we're hearing?
10:05
And nothing is set in stone. And Jordan and I have said all the time,
10:08
we see our news, but what do we know?
10:11
So we thought we'd talk to the person who probably knows more than someone who's
10:14
been in an eligibility office his whole life.
10:17
So we're so excited to talk about Rick. But first, we do want to give a little
10:21
bit of information about something that we will talk about in the interview.
10:25
It's referred to as the House Settlement, which is the big lawsuit going on
10:29
in the NCAA, which has kind of impacted and made all these changes.
10:33
Jordan, can you give us a quick briefing on what the House Settlement is?
10:38
That way, going into the interview, people have a better understanding.
10:40
So the house settlement is essentially legislation that is happening in a lawsuit
10:44
that is happening between the NCAA and the power five conferences.
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This went on when there's still the power five conferences. So any school that
10:53
was previously a part of them is what was named in this lawsuit.
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And it's basically a legal battle that addresses back pay for former athletes
11:01
who are here for NIL opportunities,
11:03
video games, et cetera, things of that nature that they would have earned revenue
11:06
on or money on had the new rule changes been implemented in their time. It goes back to 2016.
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So any athlete that was a part of the university will receive kind of this back pay for it.
11:18
While it is $2.8 billion, the number that we've been thrown around and given
11:24
from Michigan State University is around $24 million that we would be in charge
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of. And this will affect...
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While the Power Five are named, it will affect all schools and universities
11:33
in the NCAA because the trickle-down effect of that money will then be handled
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by the rest of the schools and universities.
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While the Power Five will maintain most of it and pay most of that,
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there will still be money left over, I think around a billion dollars to have
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other universities pay.
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The judge that was ruling on this kind of essentially told them to go back to
11:57
the drawing board with these rulings and with their ideas.
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So we don't know all the logistics of it while it was supposed to be kind of
12:03
handled rather quickly.
12:05
Because of this, it has been pushed back a little bit.
12:09
Absolutely. Yeah. So it sounds like almost every Division I university is going
12:13
to have some sort of price tag to pay in this lawsuit.
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And it's going to impact us in so many ways. So us and Rick kind of break it
12:20
down, but get into some speculation hour about with the expert about what he
12:23
thinks the impacts potentially can be.
12:25
And there's still a lot of unknown, but Rick talks a lot about what we do now.
12:29
So we're so excited to kind of explain more of what is happening with all these
12:32
rule changes in NCAA athletics.
12:35
Welcome back guys to the big life podcast. Today, we are joined with Rick Allen.
12:39
He was one of the first full-time NCAA compliance directors in the country and
12:44
worked on campus at two major division University for the past 25 years and
12:48
consulted with college athletic departments around the country before forming
12:52
the Informed Athlete in 2008.
12:54
Their goal now is to help other college athletes and high school students learn
12:58
about the rules, eligibility issues, and scholarship recruiting towards the
13:02
NCAA. Thank you for joining us, Rick.
13:05
Pleasure to be here. Thanks for inviting me. This is great.
13:08
So as we get into it, I mentioned that you started the Informed Athlete.
13:12
Can you tell us a little bit about what that is and what it does?
13:16
Informed Athlete is a business that my wife and I have.
13:19
So we combined her professional experience of handling marketing for some of
13:25
her clients and managing their websites with my experience with NCAA rules,
13:30
having been at University of Illinois and Oklahoma State University,
13:34
and then consulting after that.
13:37
But it actually started about the time our son was being recruited for college
13:41
baseball. baseball, we would get, I'd get a lot of questions in the stands,
13:46
in the bleachers, out in the parking lot from parents.
13:49
And my wife and I talked about it and said, you know, you should start a consulting
13:53
business and to help athletes and families out and let them know what they need to know.
13:59
So yeah, we're now in our 16th year of consulting directly with athletes and
14:04
families, is advising them about transfer rules, academic eligibility,
14:10
if you're transferring from JUCO to a four-year school, medical hardship waivers,
14:15
scholarship appeals, et cetera.
14:18
Yeah, that kind of leads me into the next question I had, which was,
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what are some of the biggest differences in terms of the compliance issues or
14:25
eligibility with the different divisions and different levels in college?
14:29
Two of the main differences, Division one has probably the most strict academic
14:35
requirements for continuing eligibility for athletes to progress from sophomore
14:41
year to junior year to senior year, etc.
14:44
They have that percentage of degree completion requirement that the other levels
14:49
don't have that requirement.
14:51
And then, of course, they have the five-year clock rule in D1,
14:55
which is a little bit different than the other levels, which is instead of a
15:00
continuously running five-year clock,
15:02
there's the 10-semester rule where they don't count semesters if you're not a full-time student.
15:08
So that's probably a couple of the major differences. But then another one is regarding transfers.
15:16
You know, Division I has the transfer portal windows, that limited period of
15:21
time when an athlete can put their name into the portal.
15:25
And there's much more flexibility at the other levels to do that than there are at D1. want.
15:31
So I want to pick your brain a little bit, especially about the transfer portal.
15:35
And it's something that Jordan and I have obviously noted, I feel like has just
15:39
seen a massive uptick since the pandemic, mostly from the stories you've heard
15:44
from the speculation, I guess, why, in your opinion, why has there been such an uptick in transfers?
15:49
And, you know, does it typically benefit athletes? Or what's your experience
15:53
with the transfer portal in recent?
15:55
Well, the surge in athletes going
15:59
into the transfer portal of course the first
16:02
surge was when as as we mentioned
16:05
earlier when we went from having to get permission from your coach and athletic
16:10
department to just being able to do it and say i would like my name entered
16:15
into the portal i'm planning to transfer over end of story and and so there
16:20
was a big surge at that time and then now effective last
16:25
spring back in April when the NCAA came out.
16:31
As a result of lawsuits that they were being faced with, they ruled that it
16:37
doesn't matter if you've previously transferred once already or even if you
16:41
previously transferred twice.
16:43
You now have the opportunity to be immediately eligible at the next school as
16:48
long as you're satisfying all the academic requirements and making progress toward your degree.
16:54
So now, theoretically, an athlete could transfer after every year to a new school
17:02
and have the opportunity to be immediately eligible at the new school.
17:06
I don't think any of us recommend that, but it would be possible to do that. Yeah.
17:11
So part of your mission is to help athletes when things don't go according to plan.
17:16
As we've talked about, kind of everything this past year with all the changes
17:20
and the breakdowns has not gone according to plan.
17:23
So can you explain a little bit about the lawsuit and changes that are currently
17:29
happening in NCAA right now?
17:31
The lawsuit that's being referred to as the the House settlement,
17:37
what it's looking like it's going to lead to is increased scholarship opportunities
17:43
at D1, but also possibly reduced roster sizes.
17:48
So as an example, right now, now certainly that would depend on the funding
17:54
availability at specific schools.
17:57
You know, SEC schools, Big Ten schools would probably fully be able to fund
18:02
those increased scholarships.
18:04
You know, smaller D1s, Ohio Valley Conference, et cetera, you know,
18:11
they probably wouldn't be able to fund all those scholarships.
18:14
So that's, I think, one of the main things that's being discussed.
18:18
And then, of course, the other impact is how that's going to overlap with Title
18:24
IX, you know, because, of course—.
18:29
We know that football and basketball are the big revenue generators at almost
18:34
every school in the country.
18:36
So, you know, they're going to schools are going to pour all their resources into those sports.
18:41
And unfortunately, some sports may end up may end up being eliminated at some universities.
18:48
Yeah, we're speculating into a lot of our questions, honestly.
18:53
What we know right now, obviously, this is a women's soccer guided podcast.
18:58
And so we know that the NCAA has announced that there will be a roster cap of
19:03
28 in NCAA women's soccer.
19:05
And I think a lot of people's question is the money.
19:08
Like you said, conferences, bigger programs might have more likelihood of funding
19:13
a full 28 scholarship roster.
19:17
Whereas right now it is 14, I believe, scholarships spread amongst however many teams.
19:23
If you, in your brain, in your experiences with this,
19:28
where do we think, where is the money coming from and what are your speculations
19:33
about how a non-revenue sport like women's soccer will be impacted compared
19:37
to a football, wrestling, basketball program?
19:40
Well, unfortunately, I think the reality is that a lot of the sports that don't
19:49
generate revenue for the department are going to be at risk of being cut.
19:54
I mean, obviously, I've been in the business a long time. I think soccer is
19:59
probably safe because of the number of female roster spots.
20:05
Again, the overlap with Title IX, I think having that many numbers will help
20:12
the sport of soccer specifically.
20:15
So I'm just curious, like at your schools, how many players have you had on
20:21
your rosters in recent years?
20:23
Yeah, my highest roster at Iowa was 36.
20:26
Okay. yeah ours is 32 this
20:29
year with the plan of it being 35 or 36
20:32
next year which obviously is no longer in the
20:35
picture but it's hovered yeah around the 32 35 range okay yeah i was just sure
20:40
i actually talked to a parent just a day or two ago they were increasing the
20:44
roster side they were they were this was a small college but they were increasing
20:49
the soccer roster size from like Like last year, it was 27 or 28.
20:54
I think they have 41 this fall, which seems like an awful lot to me. Yeah.
21:00
Yeah, that's quite a bit. But you mentioned the overlap with Title IX.
21:04
Assuming for Michigan State specifically, if we were to keep all sports right
21:08
now, which they've come out and that's the current plan.
21:11
Obviously things change as you go, but right now we plan on not cutting any sports.
21:16
Our field hockey team actually has to increase their roster size and scholarship
21:20
because they have to do it to meet Title IX requirements.
21:24
And what I didn't realize about Title IX is I always thought it was 50-50 where
21:28
you had to have equal opportunities for men and women.
21:30
But it's actually based on the people that come into the university.
21:35
So if like Michigan State has a 45% female attendance, it has to be 45% female
21:42
scholarship or roster spot availability, which I didn't realize.
21:46
I always thought it was 50-50.
21:48
One of the things I became more familiar with when I was traveling across the
21:53
country consulting with programs is I needed to learn a little bit more about Title IX.
21:58
And there has been over the years like a three-prong test, I guess,
22:04
is I think what they called it.
22:06
And you were okay, I guess, in
22:09
terms of the Title IX law, if you could satisfy one of the three prongs.
22:14
And proportional to overall student enrollment was one prong.
22:20
Financial funding comparatively was another prong and so forth.
22:24
So, but without getting into, you know, a lot of the details,
22:28
yeah, the proportionality to enrollment would be one way to satisfy it for more
22:34
proportionality to scholarship dollars would be another way.
22:40
But, you know, that's the tricky part is because, you know, obviously division
22:44
one football, you've got over a hundred guys on that roster.
22:48
And about the only other sport in women's that even comes close to my knowledge
22:55
is either crew or equestrian.
22:58
I was like, that's what I know for Title IX at Iowa, because that's like one
23:03
very interesting thing.
23:04
I feel like as a woman's athlete, Title IX is so imperative to why we're able
23:09
to do so much of what we can.
23:11
However, I don't know that a ton of people fully even understand Title IX.
23:16
And what, you know, that sports was not the intention of Title IX.
23:19
It was just kind of like a byproduct because of other legislation being passed
23:23
and that it's sponsored by the school in different aspects.
23:26
So for Iowa, for example, I know that in the 1980s, the women's soccer team
23:33
and the women's rowing team were established in the same year because our roster
23:37
size was effectively balancing out football.
23:40
So it's different programs like that that balance each other out in that regard,
23:44
which is just always interesting to me about how much Title IX and different
23:48
lawsuits like that impact our lives, yet we don't fully understand them.
23:51
Yeah, I think pretty much everyone at Michigan State, besides our field hockey
23:56
team, is making cuts to their rosters.
23:58
Like everyone is below or every roster currently is above what it needs to be doing.
24:05
Which is hard and sad to see. And with all of these changes,
24:07
I'm curious, because you've worked with athletes at all levels,
24:11
what do you think the impacts will be and maybe some discrepancy between these
24:16
levels as these rules change and the money becomes a bigger and bigger part
24:19
of the conversation as you become more professional with college athletics?
24:23
Well, these roster size limits, one impact is going to be, I think it's inevitable,
24:30
is going to be you're going to have athletes transferring down from D1 to D2,
24:36
and then that may cause a ripple effect,
24:39
D2 possibly transferring to NAIA or Division III.
24:45
You know, it's also impacted the impacting the high school recruiting.
24:52
And especially when you tie that to the transfer portal.
24:56
So many programs now they are looking their first option to build their roster
25:04
for the next year is to look into the transfer portal than to be focusing on high school.
25:09
They still need to do high school recruiting, but there's not as many spots
25:14
being offered to high school kids.
25:16
The last time we saw massive cuts or potential cuts in college athletic programs
25:22
was during the pandemic.
25:23
I know you kind of mentioned before, but at Iowa, we had our men's swim and dive team cut.
25:29
We also, for a stint, have our women's swim and dive team cut.
25:32
We had men's gymnastics cut, some sports like that. Scott, when those cuts happen,
25:37
can you explain some of the NCAA rules that apply?
25:41
Meaning I know those athletes were allowed to keep their scholarships throughout
25:45
the rest of their academic career, even though their sport was cut.
25:47
Can you kind of explain some of those nuances to like what actually happens
25:51
to athletes when their sport gets cut?
25:53
So when their sport is discontinued at their school, they...
25:59
First of all, now can be immediately go into the transfer portal,
26:04
even though it may not be that window of time on the calendar.
26:08
They also should be allowed to continue on scholarship at their school if they
26:16
want to stay there until they graduate.
26:19
But of course, most athletes want to continue competing.
26:23
So most athletes are going to transfer because they want to continue competing,
26:27
even though they could stay on their scholarship at their current school until
26:31
they graduate if they want to.
26:33
So that's really, Sam, about the only things that have changed.
26:37
So that's for if your sport gets cut as a whole, what happens now with these
26:41
roster limits where let's say I'm number 29 or 30 on my roster and I'm no longer
26:47
able to meet that 28-person roster limit.
26:50
My sport's still at the university, but me, myself, and I have gotten cut.
26:54
What happens to my NLI and what happens to me as I don't make that new roster?
26:58
So that's actually starting to happen already. Recall specifically the family
27:03
of a track athlete contacting us that the athlete had been told,
27:09
sorry, you're no longer going to be on the team.
27:12
We don't have a spot for you on the roster. Their scholarship would continue.
27:16
The school didn't, you know, the athlete was academically eligible.
27:20
Hadn't violated any team rules, hadn't had any misconduct issues.
27:24
So the school was not allowed to cancel the athlete's scholarship.
27:29
She could stay on scholarship if she wanted to, but she wasn't going to have a team to compete for.
27:35
So we've talked a lot about some of the new rule changes that have happened,
27:40
and the NCAA is continuing to change.
27:43
And right now, all we can really do is speculate on some of it.
27:46
However, there has come out with, I think, like four major rule changes that
27:50
the NCAA is considering implementing as we move forward into these next academic year.
27:56
One of that being applying football's four game rule to all sports.
28:00
Can you maybe describe a little bit about what that is and what that would mean
28:05
if they apply it to all sports?
28:07
So for those who don't know.
28:10
In virtually every sport except NCAA Division I football,
28:18
and then there's one other exception I'll talk about in a minute,
28:21
but in virtually every other sport, whether you're at D1, D2, junior college,
28:27
once you participate in a game during your regular season, if it's for one minute,
28:35
if it's for one play, a kickoff in a football game, to pinch hit in a baseball game,
28:42
you've triggered the use of that season of eligibility,
28:45
even if that's the only time you get in the whole season.
28:49
Football, for the last few years at Division I, has had the four-game rule where
28:54
where an athlete can play in up to four games.
28:57
And as long as they don't play in any other games beyond that,
29:02
they can claim that as a redshirt year.
29:06
And so I think part of the reason that that rule was implemented was to cut
29:12
down on the number of medical hardship waivers that needed to be submitted.
29:17
You know, in the past, prior to that rule going into effect,
29:21
if a football player got hurt in the first or second game of the season,
29:24
their school had to process a medical hardship waiver.
29:27
Well, now, if you only play in two games, you don't even need to worry about that.
29:32
But the NAIA organization, a couple of years ago, they implemented a rule across
29:39
all of their NAIA sports.
29:41
As long as an athlete doesn't participate, as long as they don't participate
29:45
in more than 20% of the games in their season,
29:49
That can be considered redshirt under the NAIA rules, and that's for any sport in the NAIA.
29:57
So I think that the NCAA is going to move toward allowing a rule somewhat like
30:05
the four-game rule in all sports.
30:07
Sports, I think it's inevitable that there's going to be some kind of a change
30:13
to where soccer ladies may be able to play in three games and still be able
30:20
to claim it as a red shirt.
30:22
So I have a couple of questions surrounding this. One, is the four games,
30:26
four games in total, can they be any four games or is it the first four games?
30:30
It can be any four games during the regular season.
30:33
So one of the other possible rule changes that they're looking at implementing
30:37
is allowing student athletes and recruits in all sports to remain their college
30:42
eligibility while having an agent and considering pro opportunities.
30:47
So I think this would be a huge thing and I really hope that they implement
30:50
it because I think when you have sports that go pro in the middle of your school
30:55
year or right after your collegiate end,
30:58
it's really hard to kind of gauge your options and figure out what's going on
31:02
without having an agent to kind of advocate for you and see what's out there.
31:06
Yeah. So a little bit of brief history behind that is coming from my perspective
31:13
because our son was recruited and played D1 baseball.
31:16
So the thing that was, I think, unique about the sport of baseball for years
31:23
is that baseball players could be drafted by the major leagues right out of high school,
31:29
and it's been that way for years.
31:32
But the NCAA still had this rule that
31:37
you gave up your collegiate amateur eligibility if you had an agent to...
31:46
Negotiate with possible pro teams. So for years, it was kind of a gray, murky area in baseball,
31:55
that your family could negotiate with a major league baseball team if you were
32:02
a projected high draft choice, but you weren't supposed to have an agent representing
32:07
you in those negotiations.
32:09
A few years ago, they loosened that rule to where baseball recruits can now have agents.
32:17
College athletes should be given the right to have an agent and be able to have
32:23
and represent them so they don't get taken advantage of by these professional sports teams,
32:29
but still not ruin their collegiate eligibility and so forth.
32:33
So just generally speaking, I think it's probably a good idea to be able to
32:40
have that, you know, and now with NIL, it's kind of become a little bit of a gray area anyway,
32:48
because you can have an agent for marketing your NIL opportunities,
32:55
but you're still not supposed to have an agent to represent you in negotiations
33:00
with pro sports teams. Right.
33:03
I'm sure enough back doors have been broken and some gray areas have happened
33:08
that they're going to have to finally change this rule,
33:10
which for women's soccer, as Jordan and I have talked about constantly on this
33:14
podcast, is going to be beyond crucial as the draft for the National Women's
33:20
Soccer League has been eliminated.
33:21
So it's going to be free agency out of college for players going directly to college to pro.
33:26
So having an agent to evaluate your options, whether I should stay for my senior
33:33
year or if I already have a pro team interested, is going to be critical for
33:37
athletes to be able to make informed decisions.
33:39
Yeah, I was not aware of that, but that makes perfect sense. Absolutely. Yeah.
33:45
Yeah, absolutely. I think the other two rules that are changing,
33:49
I mean, one being the national letter of intent, which it looks like they would
33:52
implement something very similar. So that wouldn't be a huge change.
33:55
And then allowing student athletes in all sports to earn prize money before
33:59
enrolling in college, which is kind of a thing, but not really as much in women's soccer.
34:05
That's going to impact, I feel like more like the tennis and golf world.
34:09
You know, the thing about what's been impacting a lot of these rule changes,
34:14
it seems like the NCAA is getting sued, you know, from all directions nowadays.
34:20
And, you know, if, look, I'm an old school guy.
34:24
I've been in this business a long time. I admit, I still think there should
34:27
be some limits on some of this stuff. But it seems like every day there's somebody
34:32
filing a lawsuit saying that you placed the limit on my opportunities.
34:38
And so that's not fair. player it's funny
34:40
I remember my family never had
34:43
an athlete in the family until me and you know you hear the
34:46
issue is right now I feel like with all the changes in
34:49
college soccer is there's not a clear avenue as to where to
34:52
get the information and so my family I
34:55
remember I ran a bunch of road races when I
34:58
was younger like 5ks 10ks and I won
35:01
a couple and by winning you won like 200 dollars or whatever and my mom's like
35:06
no no she doesn't want it like she can't do it and I was I was 13 because we
35:09
didn't know if I was allowed to accept the $200 for winning the community charity
35:15
5K because I wanted to play college athletics.
35:19
So it gets so skewed that you really have no idea at certain points where the
35:23
communication is so low.
35:25
That's one reason that...
35:29
I believe our service is valuable, you know, because a situation like that is
35:33
if, you know, families are, if they find us, if they're doing a Google search,
35:38
if they find us or they've received a referral from somebody else's,
35:42
you know, we can educate them on what some of those rules are and let them know
35:47
that before they get caught in a bad situation or they do something that negatively
35:52
impacts their eligibility and so forth.
35:55
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, honestly, Honestly, when I'm asking you these
35:58
questions, half the stuff I'm pulling up is from your guys' different newsletters
36:02
and from your website, where this is how I'm learning.
36:05
Already in college, half my information, because it is such a changing and involving world.
36:11
And even when you're in it, a lot of times I don't know exactly what's going
36:14
on, much less when I was getting recruited at 13, 14 years old,
36:18
trying to figure all that stuff out.
36:19
So NIL and all these rule changes happening. One of them was the ability for
36:24
a university now to pay a direct almost salary to their student-athletes.
36:29
Do you suspect that this will change the way NIL works as well,
36:33
if you're gaining a salary basis from your university, or there'll be any stipulations on that?
36:38
I think it's going to. I don't know how.
36:42
I don't have a feeling for how it's going to change. But if you kind of put
36:47
yourself in the shoes of an athletic director at a major university and you will need to,
36:56
as a result of this House lawsuit settlement,
36:59
if you will need to be able to fund additional scholarships in the various sports,
37:05
soccer, baseball, softball, etc., etc..
37:09
Are you going to want your donors donating directly to the athletic department,
37:14
or are you going to want them donating to the NIL collective that's aligned with your university?
37:19
I would think you want the money coming into your pot of money that you and
37:25
your department control compared to the NIL collective, which is supposed to be separate.
37:32
That's one thing I don't know that we've really ever talked about on the podcast
37:36
is is the difference between those collective funds and the general athletic funds.
37:40
I know it was a massive point of controversy during my time at Iowa because,
37:45
of course, when the NIL collective became a thing, when Iowa Swarm became a
37:52
thing, so many people wanted to donate, be a part of that donation.
37:55
They're like, oh, I'm giving money directly to the hands of Caitlin Clark and
37:59
Spencer Lee and all these amazing athletes, which is great.
38:02
What they They didn't know is our NIL collective at Iowa supports men's wrestling,
38:08
men's football, men's basketball, women's basketball.
38:12
So the money that people are now donating doesn't go to women's soccer.
38:18
Was only going to. Oh, OK. And so the women's soccer program,
38:23
if I'm a donor and I choose to put $1,000 in the collective instead of $1,000
38:29
donation to the general athletic fund,
38:31
they're taking money away from the small programs.
38:34
And a lot of people didn't understand how the negative impacts of collectives
38:39
can go towards non-revenue sports and the impact that can make.
38:43
The other thing is we're seeing a lot of push for the money to go what used
38:48
to go to small sport NIL, right?
38:51
Because we had two separate entities or things where you had the one that supports
38:54
the football and the big teams and you have the rest of us, the women's sports.
39:00
But you you're seeing a
39:02
big push for this money now to go towards a fund for the
39:05
lawsuit that 24 million dollars to buy in for football where
39:08
where teams used to get these huge
39:11
nil deals we are now losing that money to in order to pay off this lawsuit for
39:16
our football program so money going towards our nil program as a whole is being
39:20
redirected or attempted to be redirected from our athletic standpoint in order
39:24
to pay that 24 million dollars yeah yeah now that this house settlement,
39:29
I think, is going to have a huge impact.
39:33
I don't think there's any way around that. I mean, you know,
39:37
the Big Ten universities,
39:39
Iowa, Michigan State, etc., they have enough resources and donors to be able
39:46
to fund that settlement.
39:49
You get in Northern Iowa or, you know, Central Michigan or Western Michigan,
39:54
those universities don't have those.
39:57
You know, they're Their budgets aren't nearly as big as the Big Ten schools
40:01
to be able to fund all of that.
40:04
And those are the schools where I really think a lot of those smaller teams
40:10
are in danger of being cut.
40:13
Yeah, absolutely. And at the very least, if they're not going to get cut,
40:16
I think you're going to see huge discrepancies now between where before they
40:20
could maybe play some other teams because of the travel budget that's going
40:23
to get sliced, where you're only able to play kind of regionally or locally
40:26
because you don't have the same funds to travel.
40:28
Great point. Great point. Yeah.
40:31
Yeah. I think there's a lot of speculation with it.
40:34
And I've seen a lot of stuff with the NIL is that when you can pay a salary basis,
40:39
you're going to sign a sort of like contract with the university where that
40:43
becomes your only NIL deal and you're no longer allowed to collect money outside
40:46
of it because you're gaining both the scholarship and then a salary basis from university.
40:51
But I have no idea. That's just some of the some of the rumor mills we've been
40:56
seeing. Well, I know I have greatly appreciated Speculation Hour.
41:00
And I know it's kind of where a lot of people's brains are going of what is this impact.
41:05
And I know we're extremely thankful to have someone a little bit more educated
41:08
than my Twitter feed, which is where I feel like I get a lot of my information from.
41:13
But for people like me, where should or where can people kind of stay up to
41:18
date on these changes so it's not just random news that you see on Twitter that you hope is real?
41:22
Yeah, NCAA, well, NCAA posts periodic updates on their website.
41:30
But even then, you know, a lot of it is not easy to understand.
41:35
And so that's why, you know, our business is, you know, what we do is try to
41:42
explain things to the athletes, to the families and try to make it understandable.
41:47
And, you know, even though we may not agree with it, you know,
41:51
we can at least try to explain the rationale of, you know, here's why this rule
41:55
is the way it is, so on and so forth.
41:59
But, you know, there's also resources out there.
42:02
You may be familiar with daily email D1 ticker.
42:08
If you've heard of that, there's, and I didn't know until recently,
42:12
there's separate ones for, there's D1 ticker. It's a twice daily email blast,
42:17
one in the morning, one in the afternoon.
42:20
There's D2 ticker, D3 NAIA.
42:25
There's, well, there's another one, but you have to be a member of NACDA for that.
42:30
There is a college AD service email that that you can subscribe for that comes
42:37
out periodically and so forth.
42:40
But, yeah, I think just, you know, finding the solid resources you can count
42:46
on if it's the actual NCAA website or, you know, service like ours.
42:53
You know our mission is just to provide the
42:57
most accurate information we can to athletes and
43:00
families so they can decide what's best
43:03
for their specific circumstances so yeah absolutely like i said i get most of
43:09
my information from your guys's newsletter and half the stuff i read off today
43:13
came from that so i really appreciate you appreciate that jordan well my camera
43:19
definitely I probably zoomed out and I already zoned out for a sec.
43:23
I thought you were frozen. I was like, yeah, that's right.
43:27
Well, I know. I think I have all my speculations answered for a little bit.
43:31
We may need to do once we get more information on the actual house settlement,
43:35
a part to follow up with Rick about what, how many of our speculations came true. What do we think?
43:41
But thank you so, so much for taking some time out of your day to spend with
43:45
us and kind of educate us.
43:47
Well, thanks for inviting me. I really enjoyed the discussion and,
43:51
you know, learning a little bit more about some things I wasn't aware of,
43:56
you know, as you mentioned earlier.
43:58
And, hey, yeah, I'd love to do it again sometime if we want to do a follow-up.
44:04
Yeah, definitely. We'll definitely have to take you up on that.
44:06
But again, appreciate it so much. Thank you for coming on. Thank you. Take care.
44:11
Good luck. Right. That was weird.
44:16
When's that working? I have no idea.
44:21
All right. Thank you so much, Rick, for coming on to the pod and taking a part
44:27
of our little speculation. You know, once again, I know that there's so much we don't know.
44:31
And Rick acknowledges that, too, is there's still this lawsuit.
44:34
The solutions aren't answered. But we've heard about how this might impact so
44:38
many sports, especially as we care about women's soccer.
44:41
So the impacts are going to be there. And it's just going to be a matter of
44:44
how hard we get hit. it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
44:47
I mean, it is a forever revolving and changing world. And over these past few
44:52
years, it has been going rather quickly.
44:54
And I don't think these next few years are going to be any different where the
44:58
rules will continue to change and there will continue to be more and more regulations
45:02
as the NCAA kind of tries to save themselves essentially with these rule changes
45:06
from all these lawsuits that keep coming.
45:09
And while we don't know everything, he does know a lot and he was able to give
45:12
some more educated insight and some,
45:14
you know, maybe more educated speculation into what is going on you mean my
45:18
tinfoil hat and my twitter and reddit rabbit hole haven't been educational i
45:23
guess i guess an actual person with experience has been a lot better than me,
45:28
You know, I mean, he was just like one of the first full-time NCAA compliance
45:32
directors in the country. So like, he doesn't really know what he's talking about. It's fine.
45:35
Twitter can do it. Twitter is basically the same thing.
45:39
So anyway, Jordan, big week ahead. What does it look like for you?
45:45
Yes, big week ahead. We face off against Nebraska this Thursday and then Penn State.
45:52
So it is definitely a big week for us. Nebraska being one of the teams that we were co-champs with
45:58
last year and who Iowa just beat so we're
46:00
looking forward to that game they're always super competitive they're one of the
46:03
schools that like I believe they practice slide tackling
46:06
in games so that'll be it'll be physical for sure and then Penn State being
46:11
I think our number one number one rivalry you know as a as a women's soccer
46:15
team here we always look forward to that game and it's been a battle between
46:19
my time here and I think that's that's the big one for us every year is Penn
46:23
State and going back my sophomore year.
46:26
That's kind of where my career started, I feel like, was at Penn State and at that field.
46:30
And I'm looking forward to going back there and being able to maybe be a little
46:33
nostalgic of it going into my senior year.
46:35
But definitely two huge games for us this week.
46:39
And hopefully I can come back here next week and tell you we're still undefeated. So fingers crossed.
46:44
I love it. And hey, for someone a little less invested in my game of the week,
46:49
I have decided to come up with my Big Ten game of the week.
46:52
So what matchup I think will be the most interesting.
46:55
It's really anticlimactic though, because I think all eyes for me are on the Iowa Hawkeyes.
47:01
On Thursday, Iowa, who's ranked number 17, will be going to Ohio State and playing number 20.
47:08
So I think that these are two teams that have had very high rankings and necessarily
47:12
aren't the big dogs or seen as that in the Big Ten.
47:16
And I think that this can be a statement win for either team and
47:19
it's going to need to be a statement win for either team so I think that that
47:23
is a game to ranked opponents that I think will definitely be one on my watch
47:28
calendar not that you're biased or anything right not that I'm biased or anything
47:32
anything nothing like that but it will be Ohio State versus Iowa Hawkeyes.
47:37
So that being said I am glad to hear all is well in the big life Jordan we are
47:42
wishing you the best Best of luck this coming weekend against Nebraska and Penn
47:46
State. Like you said, two incredibly hard opponents.
47:49
And as always, guys, tune into College Soccer. Follow your news outlets.
47:52
Get on the same Twitter feed as me, because I feel like my only Twitter feed is College Soccer.
47:56
Get your tinfoil hats out and your speculations. I'm ready to go.
48:01
So as always, soccer on. Subscribe to the Informed Athlete. Thank you guys for
48:06
listening. See you next week.