Despite the NCAA’s Board of Directors’ recommendation that the one-time transfer waiver be tabled for this academic year, MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher — who headed up the Transfer Waiver Working Group — told Stadium that he remains optimistic that it will be implemented prior to the 2021-22 season.

On Thursday, the Board recommended to the Council that the working group’s suggested changes to the waiver process are not appropriate at this time.

“I expect forward momentum,” Steinbrecher said. “I don’t take this as a step back. I view this as a directive to bring all the pieces together.”

Steinbrecher said there still may be a vote on May 20 by the Division 1 Council, but he does not expect the rule to pass at the meeting. Steinbrecher views the Board of Directors’ recommendation as a combination of the current pandemic and multiple factors pertaining to the rule that needed to be addressed prior to it being put forward.

“They acknowledged some of the challenges we’ve had as a working group from the get-go,” he added. “It’s been a narrow scope, and we didn’t have the opportunity to address some of the issues around a unified rule that would need to be put in place to be functional.”

Steinbrecher said that they need to come up with an appropriate deadline for the notification date, how this rule impacts the APR, what this does with the grad transfer rule, and also how it affects tampering.

He expects that the Division 1 Council will ask for more information regarding the details before they vote to implement the rule.

Steinbrecher also said that the NCAA is well aware that this decision will result in an influx of waivers that will need to be handled. The first will be related to the coronavirus and players utilizing the current climate to become eligible, and another is players being informed by coaches that the one-time transfer waiver was going to go through, and deciding to enter the transfer portal with that in mind.

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