Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

Arkansas State's football program held out faint hope that somehow the NCAA would grant a waiver giving Auburn transfer and Little Rock Christian product Michael Dyer immediate eligibility. The Sun Belt Conference could have used the publicity of a Heisman Trophy-worthy candidate suiting up for one of its teams in 2012.

ASU's attempt at a waiver for Dyer seemed half-hearted at best, and even the average fan with the basic knowledge about NCAA transfer policy wondered how Dyer or ASU might claim a "hardship" and need immediate eligibility. The NCAA will consider a "hardship" — serious illness within the family, predominately — in granting immediate eligibility when a player transfers from one Bowl Subdivision (FBS) university to another.

Dyer could have gone the route of exiled former Georgia running back Isaiah Crowell and gained immediate eligibility at a Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) school without needing any of the paperwork and pleading. Crowell, booted from the Georgia program by Mark Richt last month, transferred last week to Alabama State, a Southwestern Athletic Conference school.

That the NCAA denied Dyer's waiver isn't the issue. It's that the NCAA takes a willy-nilly approach to transfers these days, forcing most players to sit a year if they transfer between Bowl Subdivision teams while their coaches can come and go as they please. (And, of course, those coaches make millions of dollars while the players get no subsidy, but that's a column for another day.)

According to an NCAA spokeswoman, each transfer waiver case is viewed on its own merits.

Broderick Green, who spent two seasons, including a redshirt year, at Southern Cal, was granted a waiver for immediate eligibility at Arkansas in 2009. Green's waiver cited the hardship of a family illness. Yes, Los Angeles is a good haul from Little Rock, compared with Fayetteville.

Arkansas State, in announcing the NCAA's decision on Dyer, didn't specify anything beyond the university's asking the NCAA for a waiver on Dyer.

And, while we're on the subject of specifics, we never were given any specifications as to Dyer's suspension from Auburn last December for testing positive for synthetic marijuana, only that the suspension was "indefinite," according to Tiger football coach Gene Chizik. Was this a pre-bowl test by the NCAA, which would require a six-game suspension through the Tigers 2011 bowl game, which Dyer missed, and the 2012 season? Was it merely a team or university infraction? Nobody cared, or cares now, to specify. Would Dyer have missed the first five games at Auburn this fall as part of the suspension? Whoever knows has kept that to himself.

Dyer's case only further points out a of common sense among the NCAA concerning its rule book.

A player such as Springdale's Ashton Glaser, who spent two years at Missouri as a bench-warming quarterback, is transferring to FCS-level Missouri State, where he'll have immediate eligibility.

Central Arkansas has benefited greatly from FBS transfers in recent years, such as former Dollarway star and Ole Miss wide receiver/returner Jesse Grandy, or the Bears' most recent starting quarterback, Nathan Dick.

The NCAA's transfer rules and the prospect of immediate eligibility for four- and five-star athletes who can't get a "hardship" waiver is a boon to the FCS schools like UCA, Alabama State and Missouri State.