The NCAA Division I Council is considering lifting the pay restrictions on football graduate assistants, according to a report Thursday from Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated.
The proposal comes from the NCAA Rules Modernization Committee, which also recommends re-classifying baseball and softball volunteer positions into paid, full-time roles.
The DI Council is also expected to review a proposal to lift the pay restrictions on football graduate assistants, sources tell @SINow.
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) October 27, 2022
These proposals, from the NCAA Rules Modernization Committee, are aimed at eliminating restricted-earning positions to avoid antitrust issues.
Before anyone rushes to assume Nick Saban and his many imitators would instantly turn Group of 5 and FCS head coaches into his GAs, not so fast. The NCAA has strict restrictions on who is eligible to work as a graduate assistant, starting with the fact that GAs have to be enrolled in graduate school while also handling a greater workload than full-time assistant coaches.
Here are the GA eligibility requirements, taken from a PowerPoint presentation at a 2021 NCAA rules seminar. For the 2023 football season, a GA must have completed his playing eligibility and/or earned his Bachelor's degree no later than 2016.
The rule change wouldn't change the pool of eligible GAs, it would just mean that the people in those jobs wouldn't necessarily have to survive on poverty wages while doing them.
The change is part of an organization-wide move to relax or remove many of the guardrails in place for decades within college sports. The NCAA Transformation Committee has recommended removing the countable coaches limit on football staffs. Presently, only the head coach, his 10 assistants and GAs are allowed to provide on-field instruction to players, and only the head coach and his 10 assistants can recruit off campus.
Sources maintain that rule is expected to go into effect early next year.
In a way, the proposal to eliminate the countable-coaches cap could work against the proposal to eliminate the GA salary cap.
Under the current system, GAs are incredibly valued positions on any staff (which is why it's such a tragedy they're so underpaid) because the number of coaches permitted by NCAA rules to provide on-field instruction is so limited. But if those limits are removed, it changes the calculus here, does it not? If a head coach has $100,000 to pay one coach, is he more likely to spend it on a 52-year-old coach with experience up and down the ladder in a variety of roles and programs, or a 24-year-old looking to learn on the job?
No one wants to think of the coaching profession in such adversarial terms, and the NCAA's various committees surely aren't thinking that way. It's mainly just a shame the Rules Modernization Committee wasn't formed 30 years ago.