The NCAA has just gotten to the point where they seem to be making their decisions based on what comes up with then shake their Magic 8 Ball. In the case of Duke safety Jeremy Cash the NCAA read a definitive "No" when he asked them to appeal an earlier decision denying his request to participate immediately after transferring from Ohio State this past January.
Duke coach David Cutcliffe was not pleased telling the media that he was disappointed and upset by the NCAA's decision.
“I’m extremely disappointed and extremely upset,” Cutcliffe said. “I would go so far as to say the entire ruling of transfers needs to be looked at pretty closely. We see people graduate because they are backups somewhere, they get beat out, they transfer and they are immediately eligible. We see people who quote move closer to home and they are immediately eligible."
It is that disparity that makes the NCAA's decision seem so arbitrary. In some cases the NCAA will grant the request to play immediately after a transfer when a team makes a coaching change or a team gets in trouble with the NCAA.
Just look at college basketball where UConn center Alex Oriakhi was granted the request to play immediately after the Huskies were slapped with a post season ban for poor academic performance.
Trey Zeigler another college basketball player was allowed to transfer and granted his request to play this coming season when his former coach, who just so happens to be his father, was fired at Central Michigan.
In Cash's case the coach who recruited him, Jim Tressel was fired, his temporary replacement Luke Fickel was replaced as head coach by former Florida coach Urban Meyer, a guy that Cash had the chance to play for but chose not to.
And on top of that Ohio State was hit with a post season ban due to NCAA violations that occurred under Tressel. Facing all of that Cash elected to come to Durham and despite the seeming precedence that has already been set by other players and the NCAA it seems ludicrous that they would deny Cash's very similar request.
Obviously Cash is a good student or he wouldn't have come to a school like Duke, where academics is still valued.
At Duke's recent Meet the Devils event I got the chance to meet Cash, albeit briefly, and wished him good luck with his impending appeal. He seemed somber about the whole ordeal but thanked me anyway.
You could tell he is eager to play right away and he is talented enough. He was a four-star recruit coming out of high school and scrimmaged with the ones during the Blue Devil's final scrimmage this week.
And now with back up safety Taylor Sowell out for the season with a ruptured achilles and starting safety Jordon Byas out with an as yet to be determined knee injury, the Blue Devils are thin at safety all of a sudden and are starting one safety that has never played the position in college.
As unfortunate as the NCAA's decision on Cash is, it is just another way of showing the inconsistency and hypocrisy that appears to be the standard operating procedure in Indianapolis.
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