The American Athletic Conference has joined the growing movement across college sports to eliminate some of the rules preventing movement between schools, specifically addressing penalties for transferring to another school within the conference.
The previous policy allowed players to transfer from one conference member to another within the AAC, but in doing so they would not be eligible for competition until they had completed an academic year at the second school. Additionally, players transferring from one school to another within the conference lost one year of eligibility.
The intraconference transfer policy is eliminated from AAC rules effective immediately, per the unanimous vote of the league’s athletic directors. Moving forward, all transfers involving AAC schools will only be governed by NCAA transfer policy.
The AAC joins the ACC and the MAC as FBS conferences to make this move in recent weeks. These moves are being made not only as part of a growing movement across college athletics to eliminate penalties and hurdles for player transfers, but in anticipation of NCAA-wide changes to transfer policy. CBS Sports senior college football writer Dennis Dodd reported this week that “significant headway will be made toward instituting one-time transfer legislation” during NCAA meetings scheduled for this week.
“This is an important decision that is in the best interests of our student-athletes,” AAC commissioner Mike Aresco said. “It will align the conference’s position on transfers with the expected significant change to the NCAA policy.”
The one-time transfer rule, if passed, would allow athletes who qualify to transfer once during their five-year eligibility window without having to sit out a year in residence.