AAF to use same eligibility rules as NFL
- Country:
- United States
After Clemson's dominant victory over Alabama on Monday night in the College Football Playoff championship game, social media was flooded with fans wishing Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence could play pro football right away. They'll need to wait until 2021. Probably. NBC Sports reported Tuesday that a spokesman for the upstart Alliance of American Football said the league will use the same eligibility rules as the NFL.
That means a player can't join the league until at least three years have passed since his high school class graduated. So under that scenario, Lawrence and other players who were true freshmen in the 2018 season can't be selected by the NFL until the 2021 draft, or join the AAF until then. The AAF opens play in its inaugural season on Feb. 9. The XFL, however, hasn't committed to such a timeline. The eight-team XFL is scheduled to begin in 2020.
In an interview with podcast host Brian Berger of the Sports Business Radio Road Show in December, XFL commissioner Oliver Luck said, "We're not subject to that." "Theoretically we could take a player right out of high school. I doubt we'll do that," Luck said, taking note of the physical differences between teenagers and players in their mid-20s. "But I wouldn't rule it out," he said. "Nor would I rule out taking a player who played a year of college football and let's say isn't eligible academically, which happens. Or a player who is two years out of college, and is transferring, and would have to sit out a year. A lot of guys don't want to."
(With inputs from agencies.)
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