Among the many divisive issues in college athletics today, the graduate transfer rule is... one of them. Players and media love it, arguing that athletes who fulfill their end of the bargain should gain the freedom to find a favorable spot on the depth chart, whether that be at their current campus or another. Conference commissioners argue the rule isn’t being used as intended. Media retorts that coaches who bounce from school to school sound awfully hypocritical when they try to block players from doing the same.
And round and round we go.
At his conference’s spring meetings in Phoenix Wednesday, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott weighed in on the topic.
“It sounded great in theory...but I think we still have to look at some of the data,” Scott told ESPN.com. “I think we need to look more carefully into these graduate transfers that aren’t actually getting a graduate degree. There is not much success rate. It’s raising questions.”
To be clear, graduate transfers are a bigger issue - if one wants to use that term - in basketball than football. And Scott’s conference figures to be the biggest beneficiary this fall after Oregon landed Eastern Washington quarterback Vernon Adams.
Elsewhere, Scott isn’t a big fan of your #Pac12refs memes, saying his conference’s zebras actually graded out perfectly average, thank you very much. “I definitely think there was a big perception gap between what gets reported and the reality,” Scott said.
Here’s looking at you, Glasses Ref.