Getty Image / Ryan Kang
The college football world was rocked on Wednesday when UNLV starting quarterback Matthew Sluka decided to end his season to preserve his eligibility over a disagreement over NIL compensation. Now, it appears that USC defensive lineman Bear Alexander is the next college player to end his season early to preserve eligibility.
Alexander’s decision was made public after the defensive lineman was not at USC practice on Wednesday. He becomes the highest-profile player to make a move to preserve his eligibility in anticipation of transferring elsewhere next season.
College football players are allowed to play in up to four games to preserve their eligibility if they have a redshirt available. This allows teams to use their younger players to plug holes and gain valuable experience while not losing eligibility. Previously, a player was unable to redshirt if they appeared in any game for any amount of time. That changed in 2018.
Now, with free transfers and NIL money being handed out to players, there is an incentive to opt out of the rest of the season early in the year, taking the redshirt, and going to play somewhere else next year with the eligibility intact.
We saw Sluka do this over NIL money he alleges he wasn’t paid by UNLV. Now it’s former Georgia transfer and a former consensus first-round draft prospect in Bear Alexander doing it.
The issue likely has to do with playing time. According to 247 Sports, Alexander averaged over 50 snaps a game last year for the Trojans. This year, that number is down to just 23 snaps per contest. And, after Saturday’s loss to Michigan, he tweeted this, with his guardian Tony Jones expressing similar sentiments about lack of playing time.
FREE 9-OWE ………………. 😈 pic.twitter.com/8AvVyVWpJq
— Bear Alexander (@BearAlexander_) September 23, 2024
Still, this came out of nowhere, it seems. The true junior practiced on Tuesday and Lincoln Riley didn’t think there were any issues with his playing time.
Lincoln Riley on Bear Alexander’s role:
“He played over a third of the game. So people want to act like the guy’s not playing snaps. He’s doing a good job for us out here. He’s getting better. There’s no story there. I know you guys are looking for one — there’s no story there.” pic.twitter.com/vaQ1O6JWuc
— Ryan Young (@RyanYoungRivals) September 25, 2024
But, obviously, there were. Alexander, who transferred repeatedly in high school and started his career at Georgia before transferring to USC after one season, will be on the move again. His NFL Draft stock has likely fallen too much to make entering the draft as a true junior a bad move.
More importantly for college football, it seems like these four-game opt-outs could start to spread like wildfire. This would be absolutely disastrous for the sport as a whole. It’s one thing to have free agency for basically every player every offseason. But, this is a huge escalation of that and are things that coaches shouldn’t be worrying about during a season.
I wouldn’t necessary expect many more of these this kinds of opt-outs this year. Teams have either played 3 or 4 games so far. But, it’s possible we see a ton of these situations next season.