Kentucky is still waiting on a ruling from the SEC office regarding Auburn transfer Joey Gatewood’s availability this season.
The SEC has a rule that prohibits undergraduate transfers within the conference from being immediately eligible at another SEC university, forcing them to sit out a season before resuming play at a new school. There’s an exemption to the rule for graduate transfers.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said the following when asked bout the intra-conference transfer rule last week.
“If I’m clear, it’s about intra-conference transfer,” Sankey said during an appearance on WJOX radio last week. “There’s a very direct rule that says to transfer from school A to school B in the SEC; they serve an academic year resident. There are a set of NCAA oddity exceptions, and then in 2018, our membership created two more: one for grad transfers, and one for individuals on teams that face postseason bans. And people send in waivers, but, you know, one of the questions that should be asked is that what the commissioner going to do is, is why haven’t our members voted to change that rule?
“So we’re inviting people to campus knowing there’s a clear rule and now everyone points and says, ‘Well, you need to let people out of that rule.’ And one of the questions that’s real is, why is our membership not acted to change? And the answer is because we have to work together. We have to be respectful. Could it change? Should it change? Might we manage it differently? Those are questions still to be answered, but the real direct answer is, decades ago, and repeatedly since, the now 14 member universities of the SEC have said we think that rules are appropriate within our own conference.”
Mark Stoops held his second weekly press conference of the 2020 season and was asked about Gatewood’s status, along with the transfer rule within the SEC.
“The commissioner is correct, Stoops said. “When we recruited these student-athletes back to our institutions, we knew the rule, but we also understood the landscape in college football is changing. It’s changing every day, it’s changing every year. I understand both sides. The commissioner is crystal clear on that, and I agree with him.
“However, we are trying to get the rule changed. That’s above the head coaches’ decision. It doesn’t matter what we think. We need to talk to our presidents, and our presidents are voting on that. It’s my understanding that we’ll have a decision relatively quickly on that. But that’s at the president level, and they’ll make those decisions. So, us coaches can be vocal or talk about it any which way we want, but that’s not my style to play out things in the media and publicly. I’ll talk to our people. Our people already have. We’ve already put in our vote on what we want to do.
“I do agree with it because I feel like the rule is going to change anyway. In six months, you’re going to have an opportunity to transfer and go anywhere you want, a one-time transfer. I’m in support of that as well. Yes, I am.”
