Most casual college football fans wouldn’t consider the SEC holding the high moral ground on many if any issues. When it comes to a certain type of transfer, however, they now most certainly do.
Georgia had proposed a rule change that would bar SEC schools from accepting transfers who had been disciplined for what was labeled as “serious misconduct” at that student-athlete’s previous institution. Some observers believed that the initiative had little chance of passing; they were wrong.
Friday afternoon, the conference announced that the “UGA rule” had passed muster with its member institutions and will be implemented for the 2015-16 sports season. It’s believed that the SEC is the first conference to enact such a policy.
As for the specifics of what’s being described as a groundbreaking rule, let’s go to the tweets from those in Destin for the league’s annual spring meetings:
Georgia’s proposal passed banning transfers who committed “serious misconduct” defined as sexual assault, domestic violence, sexual violence
— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) May 29, 2015
This is the SEC's writeup of that new transfer ban. pic.twitter.com/oPHD2GNmiO
— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) May 29, 2015
SEC passes Georgia's proposal to ban transfers who committed "serious misconduct" at previous schools. Huge change
— Mark Long (@APMarkLong) May 29, 2015
While the rule is being hailed as the “UGA rule,” it might as well be called the “UGA rule, brought to you by Jonathan Taylor.”
In July of 2014, Taylor was dismissed by Georgia following a domestic violence arrest. In a controversial move, Taylor signed with Alabama in January of this year. Two months later, Taylor was arrested again on a domestic violence charge, leading to his second dismissal from an SEC school in less than a year.
Now that the SEC has set the standard when it comes to transfers such as Taylor, look for most, if not all of other Power Five conferences to follow suit in relatively short order.
One final bit of business (I’ll have a separate post on the new field-rushing-court-storming penalties in short order): Mike Slive announced that Greg Sankey will take over as commissioner of the SEC June 1. Slive’s contract runs through July 31, and he had been expected to fulfill that obligation before stepping down.