NCAA junior college decision throws Illinois high school, FCS recruiting into further chaos

Joshua Caraway serves as Western Illinois’ recruiting coordinator for second-year head coach Joe Davis’ Leatherneck program. (Photo by WIU Photography and Design)

By Dan Verdun

A Dec. 23 NCAA decision regarding an extra year of eligibility for junior college players has thrown the transfer portal era into further confusion.

The ruling stems from the NCAA Division I Board of Directors’ approval of a blanket waiver granting an extra year of eligibility to junior college transfers such as Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia, who successfully sued the NCAA.

Though Pavia won his case in a Tennessee federal court, the NCAA is appealing, according to an ESPN report, and effects only a limited group of athletes causing confusion and concern among coaches and athletes.

“It’s still going back to the courts, so right now the rule only affects people whose 2024 fall season was their last season of fall eligibility,” College of DuPage head coach Matthew Rahn told Prairie State Pigskin.

Western Illinois recruiting coordinator and assistant coach Joshua Caraway, a former high school English teacher, summed it up with a metaphor.

“It is the Wild West for sure,” he said. “It’s unbelievable right now.”

How we got here

The NCAA decision opens the door to collegiate athletes in all sports for an additional year of eligibility.

According to reports, the NCAA extended an extra year of eligibility in 2025-26 to athletes who previously “competed at a non-NCAA school for one or more years” and otherwise would have exhausted their NCAA eligibility after the 2024-25 season.  

Pavia, a former juco transfer who played at FBS New Mexico State in 2022 and 2023 and then at Vanderbilt in 2024, is seeking an additional year of collegiate eligibility next fall.

His case argued that the organization’s rule of counting a player’s junior college years against overall NCAA eligibility violates antitrust laws by restricting an athlete’s ability to profit from his or her name, image and likeness.

Where do we go from here?

As with so many things in collegiate athletics today, the decision will play out in judicial courts to determine what happens on the actual playing courts and fields.

“There’s a lot of branches to it,” Rahn said. “My worry is that the people who are making the decisions on it are only looking at it from one side.”

Under NCAA rules, athletes typically have five years to compete for four seasons. 

Last week, CBS Sports college basketball insider Jon Rothstein reported the NCAA is considering a five-year period of eligibility for players in all sports.

“The topic will continue to be discussed in early 2025,” Rothstein wrote.

As a recruiting coordinator, WIU’s Caraway is very familiar with both the Pavia and NCAA rulings.

“I want guys to succeed. That’s what college football is about. You want to create opportunities for these young men,” Caraway said. “Sure, they’re coming here to play football and to get an education. At the same time, you learn about life. You learn about facing adversity, and again, that’s why I love being a football coach, because it’s about more than just what happens on the field.

“So am I mad that we’re giving student-athletes an additional year to be a part of these life-changing programs? No, not at all.”

That said, Caraway added that the original intent of college football wasn’t “to have 24-, 25- or 26-year-olds enrolling with 18-year-olds.”

Rahn’s COD teams have won four straight NJCAA Division III championships. The program has sent players to all four Illinois FCS schools over the years, particularly to WIU and Eastern Illinois in recent seasons. 

“At the end of the day, how many full-time semesters are these kids going to be allowed to have before colleges say, ‘Hey, no more school or no more eligibility for you,’” he said. “Right now, it’s 10 full-time semesters unless you get waivers. It’s very convoluted.

“I’m happy that I’m not part of the decision-making process. I don’t know if I’d get it right. I don’t know what the answer is, but it will be interesting to see what they do.”

What does this mean for prep recruits?

“Edgy” Tim O’Halloran has covered Illinois high school recruiting since the mid-1990s, appearing in print and online along with providing radio and TV coverage.

The transfer portal’s impact has already hit the state’s high school recruiting hard.

“You’re seeing it,” he said. “I can tell right now it’s going to be considerably fewer numbers overall that are signed out of high school.”

It’s a trend that has spread out over all levels, which O’Halloran noticed in this week’s NCAA Division III title game between Naperville’s North Central College and Mount Union.

“I saw some FCS-level talent playing the D-III championship game,” O’Halloran said. “I think you’re going to see more and more of that. Kids with real talent that, because of the lack of (scholarship) offers and everything else, are going to trickle down to lower-level schools. 

“Good thing? Bad thing? I don’t know, but it’s a heckuva lot different than it was five, six, seven years ago.”

Should the Pavia decision be expanded, it likely reduces the opportunities for high school athletes to obtain scholarships, O’Halloran said.

Junior colleges would certainly become more attractive to high school recruits in that case.

“We make our success here in finding the under-recruited kids from high school,” Rahn said. “We don’t really seek out the bounce-back (players), guys that were at other places and had to leave, that other jucos do. We find kids that we feel are maybe a year or two away from earning scholarships at higher levels. We develop them and then they hopefully go on (to four-year schools).”

Illinois once had multiple junior colleges that fielded football teams. Today, College of DuPage is the only one that remains in the state.

“I’ve talked to some juco people I know in the state and it’s not like there’s a huge surge to restart football here,” O’Halloran said. “That’s not going to happen, at least not for now. In some cases those programs have been shut down for 20-plus years.

“I’d like to see junior college football resurging here in our state. I wish it would, but it’s not going to.”

Rahn notes that should the courts rule junior college years won’t count as years of eligibility, other juco programs will likely adopt the COD model of development.

“It might also show a lot of kids that while you might not be a Division I athlete right out of high school, in a few years you might be and it won’t cost you your eligibility,” he said. 

WIU’s Caraway describes the current situation as “a little bit of cognitive dissonance.”

“You have a system now where you do have guys who are no longer fresh out of high school playing their fifth, sixth or sometimes even their seventh year of college football,” he said. “It’s definitely taking up more spots on rosters that would otherwise go to high school guys. That’s one of the biggest groups that’s been hurt.”

Caraway views the transfer portal as neither good nor bad, but rather as a tool. 

“For a long time now it was the goal of a high school senior to get that scholarship,” he said. “That goal is still out there, but man, now you’ve got to compete yearly with 2,000 FBS guys in the portal and another 1,000 guys from FCS in the portal. There’s just not enough scholarships and seats for all these guys.”

While still weighing out the possibilities, Caraway pointed out that, “The Pavia waiver does not give all junior college players extra years at all times.”

After meeting with WIU’s compliance officer, Caraway said his understanding is that athletes wishing to use the Pavia waiver must also meet other requirements to be eligible. 

“In essence, you have to make progress toward a degree and also meet the five-year clock. This is what the waiver is for,” he said.

“Do I think more (high school) kids will go juco at this very moment? No. I don’t think it’s going to make a mass surge to go quite yet because there isn’t a blanket statement saying that your junior college years don’t count. I think the goal would still be to go to a four-year NCAA institution right out of high school and get your school paid for with a scholarship. 

“But if they do make a change where the junior college years don’t count, there will 100 percent be a shift in high school recruits (choosing that path),” he said. “Why not use those two years to get experience under your belt, get into the weight room and get some training done? And then, maybe in two years, you’ll look like a much better prospect to these four-year institutions than you do coming out of high school.”

Final word

As things stand, reality and perception are two very different things.

“We’re trying to find out what the rule is like everyone else is right now,” Rahn said. “There’s a lot of misinformation out there. A lot of people are interpreting it how they want to interpret it and then just telling everyone that’s just how it is.”

Decisions by the NCAA and the courts would be welcomed sooner rather than later.

“I hope the decision makers figure this out soon so that there’s some clarity to it,” Rahn said.

That can’t come soon enough for all parties. 

“There’s not a lot of oversight right now,” Caraway said. “I don’t think that’s the fault of anybody in particular, but they (NCAA officials) are still figuring out how to implement the Pavia waiver almost by the day so we’re waiting for that legislation to come out. That’s all good and well, but in the meantime, school starts in a few days.

“In layman’s terms, it could turn into a real free-for-all for student-athletes who might not have the correct information about what this waiver actually is.”

Dan Verdun is a co-founder of Prairie State Pigskin. He has written four books: NIU Huskies Football, EIU Panthers Football, ISU Redbirds Football and SIU Salukis Football.

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