Could Utah Quarterback Cam Rising Be Eligible To Play An Eighth Season In 2025?
May 30, 2024, 4:52 PM | Updated: 6:33 pm
SALT LAKE CITY – An interesting question began circulating around the internet Thursday afternoon: could Utah football quarterback Cam Rising be eligible to play in 2025?
The quick and easy answer is “no”, but there is a long, and more complicated way to get to “yes”. (We’ll get into all of the details in just a minute.)
Rising is already on his seventh season of college eligibility after redshirting at Texas in 2018, transferring to Utah and sitting out in 2019 (this is where people are getting tripped up and thinking “yes” and we’ll explain later why it’s actually a “no”), only playing a couple of snaps in 2020 before suffering a season ending injury, getting an extra year because of the Pandemic in 2020, getting through most of 2021 and 2022 before suffering another injury that forced Rising to medical redshirt in 2023 giving him the seventh year…whew!
Interesting part of the settlement. Athletes who had to sit out a year under the old transfer rules and are still in college will get that year of eligibility restored and could come back next year.
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) May 30, 2024
Here is why Rising is not eligible (despite popular belief) for an eighth year under the latest ruling in the NCAA’s many settlement battles. We’ll also explain the long-shot, complicated reasons Rising could get an eighth season that has absolutely zero to do with the latest rulings.
Why Cam Rising Is Not Eligible For An Eighth Season Under The Latest Ruling From The US Justice Department Vs. The NCAA
It’s probably safe to say most college sports fans have been watching with some mixture of curiosity, anxiety, annoyance, anger, disappointment, and horror at the battle going on between the US court system and NCAA.
If for whatever reason you haven’t followed it, you can brush up on it here.
The latest and greatest in this epic saga which is rapidly changing the face of college sports as we know them, the Athletic’s Stewart Mandel reported the US Justice Department, along with a few stateside Attorney Generals, have reached a settlement with the NCAA that will make unlimited transfers the law of the land.
There is an interesting portion- Article 23 in the Justice Department’s consent decree that many have jumped on as evidence Rising is eligible for an eighth season of eligibility. It reads:
The NCAA shall provide an additional year of eligibility to any Division I student-athlete who was deemed ineligible to compete for a season or any portion of a season of competition
occurring during or since the 2019-20 academic year because of the Transfer Eligibility Rule
provided the student-athlete:
That looks great and like a slam dunk for Rising, however this is where people have been led astray. They haven’t looked at conditions A-C (specifically A for Rising) that a source who currently works in college compliance pointed out to KSL Sports.
a. transferred between two member institutions more than once;
b. is currently enrolled at a Division I member institution; and
c. is currently eligible to compete, or their eligibility expired at the end of a season
of competition completed during the 2023-24 academic year.
The latest NCAA ruling only applies to student-athletes who have transferred multiple times during the 20219-2020 academic years or beyond. Rising only transferred once.
However, there is still two ways- more complicated and having nothing to do with today’s ruling that could get Rising an eighth year of eligibility according to our college compliance source.
If The NCAA Ruling Has Nothing To Do With Cam Rising’s Eligibility, What Does?
The quickest way to explain the first option is that Rising would require another medical redshirt in 2024 due to being unable to play a single down in the season because of injury.
However, our compliance source also noted Rising could argue for another year in 2025 without anything happening to him.
That would require him proving he missed two seasons for reasons outside of his control- his redshirt season at Texas and last season with his injury.
It’s a fascinating thought exercise in college compliance (at least as it stands now) that is most likely not to be entertained by Rising. However, it’s fun to think about none-the-less.
Michelle Bodkin is the Utah Utes Insider for sports.ksl.com and host of both the Crimson Corner Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and The Saturday Show (Saturday from 10 a.m.–12 p.m.) on The KSL Sports Zone. Follow her on X, Instagram, and Threads: @BodkinKSLsports
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