The NCAA is taking its sweet time to approve the Jeremiah Masoli transfer waiver *UPDATED*

The NCAA loves to take it sweet time on determining whether or not student athletes get cleared to play.  The instances of college football’s governing body waiting until the 11th hour (or later) to pass judgment are too countless to review here.

But in the case of Jeremiah Masoli’s transfer to Ole Miss, the delay is pretty damn curious to me.  Why the hell is the NCAA taking so long to approve this transfer request?

To recap, Masoli has already graduated from Oregon with a year of eligibility remaining.  Under the NCAA’s current set of rules, such an individual can transfer and play immediately at another school so long as the athlete in question enrolls in a graduate program not offered at the school he or she just left.  Alabama hoops player Justin Knox made essentially the same kind of transfer earlier this summer and will play his final season at North Carolina.

If I’m missing something or totally misinterpreting the rule then please, somebody get me up to speed here.  In my mind there shouldn’t be anything in the academic realm to review.  The diploma in Masoli’s hand makes that a moot point.

He’s been accepted at Ole Miss and he’s been practicing with the team.  Hell, if the school already has him on board, the problem wouldn’t appear to be on that end, either.

I’m thinking that either the notoriously slow NCAA has one hell of a backlog of cases to review or they’re trying to make a point here. It’s probably a little bit of both.

Masoli is no saint, that’s a given.  And he’s not entirely in the clear in regard to the traffic/possession charges in June that forced Oregon to kick him off the team.

So I’m not defending the guy’s propensity for knuckleheadedness, because that’s well established.   But I can’t find anything in the NCAA’s rule book saying that someone in Masoli’s position should be denied a transfer request based on previous brushes with the law.

If the NCAA is dragging its feet as a way of showing its dissatisfaction with the situation, then I have a real problem with that.  I’d like to think that they’re above that kind of passive-aggressive behavior.

Maybe the NCAA is taking its cue from members of the media, a good many of whom have expressed a negative view on the Masoli transfer.  For example, here’s Dennis Dodd’s take on the matter:

The SEC doesn’t look good as its image as a football-inclined league (at the expense of academics) is enhanced.  Ole Miss looks worse.  Notice that Vanderbilt, which we all know could use some quarterback help, didn’t, as far as we know, contact Masoli.  Neither did Kansas, another school in desperate need of a quarterback.

But at this school, in this league, there is always room for Jeremiah Masolis. (CBSSports.com)

I understand Dodd’s point and I’m not entirely in disagreement with it.  With that kind of sentiment floating around, any school that rolled the dice on Masoli was bound to take an image hit.

However, Houston Nutt and his bosses at Ole Miss are more than aware of the baggage that comes with taking in Masoli.  If this guy screws up again, some careers will undoubtedly be derailed.  Hell, Nutt might find high school coaching jobs hard to come by if Masoli gets arrested again under his watch.

But the burden of dealing with that potential time bomb lies with the Ole Miss athletic department, not the NCAA.  That’s because while he’s broken some laws in the past, Masoli’s transfer didn’t break any NCAA rules.

If the NCAA wants to change its tune and make this type of transfer more difficult in the future, then it has every right to do so.  But in the meantime, they should go ahead and honor the rules they already have on their books, regardless of how reluctant they are to do so.

*UPDATE* The NCAA finally made a decision this afternoon, Masoli can play football for Ole Miss…in 2011.  Strange stuff, man, strange stuff.

Houston Nutt will have to dust off the Matt Jones playbook for Jeremiah Masoli

In a move that came as no surprise to anyone, Jeremiah Masoli has enrolled at Ole Miss and the quarterback will now get the opportunity to squeeze one more season out of his college football career.

But David Brandt of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger explains why it’s not necessarily a totally done deal as of this morning:

He has applied to enter the Parks and Recreation graduate program at Ole Miss, but hasn’t been accepted as of Sunday evening. The NCAA also has to waive a one-year residency requirement, which is usually granted if the athlete chooses a graduate program not offered at his previous school. (USA Today)

I think these are pretty much all formalities, though, unless some crusty old dean in the Parks and Recreation school starts bitching and moaning about the sanctity of his academic program being undercut by the evil specter of college athletics.  But thankfully for we college football fans, those Jan Kemp types are few and far between.  Screw book learning, I want to see that kid throw a football!

Speaking of Masoli’s on field endeavors, here’s what Brandt had to say:

The San Francisco native will almost certainly help the Rebels on the field, giving the team a dynamic 5-foot-11, 220-pound playmaker who should fit well into Nutt’s offensive system. He passed for 3,891 yards and rushed for 1,386 more during his two years with Oregon, accounting for 51 total touchdowns. (USA Today)

I wholeheartedly agree, Masoli is indeed a dynamic playmaker.  But does he fit that well into head coach Houston Nutt’s current offensive system?  The Ole Miss starter last season, Jevan Snead, bolted for the pros after a miserable junior year.  Much to Snead’s chagrin, nobody drafted him.

That was after playing two years in a college offense that was tailored to his strengths.  Here’s the problem for Nutt this close to preseason drills starting: that offense he set up for Snead doesn’t really cater to his new quarterback’s skill set.

Masoli operated almost exclusively out of the shotgun at Oregon while Snead took damn near every snap from under center at Ole Miss.  And while above average, I don’t think Masoli’s arm is suited for the type of play calling that Nutt emphasized the last two seasons.

What’s that mean?  It’s time for Nutt to pull out the playbook he had for Matt Jones during his days at Arkansas.  In that type of scheme, where a quarterback can make plays with his feet, Masoli can most certainly thrive.

But it’s a hell of a gamble trying to get everyone on the offense to switch gears in a compressed amount of time, which is what Nutt will have to do.  It’ll be very interesting to see how all of this plays out.