Miss. St.’s Arnett rips NCAA as TE ruled ineligible

• Mark Schlabach, ESPN Senior Citizen WriterSep 8, 2023, 05:49 PM ET Close Senior college football author Author of seven books on college football
• Graduate of the University of Georgia

North Carolina’s Mack Brown isn’t the only college football coach irritated with the NCAA since of its current judgments relating to graduate transfers.Mississippi State’s Zach Arnett blasted the governing body on Friday after it ruled that graduate transfer Geor ‘quarius Spivey was ineligible to complete for the Bulldogs this season.Spivey, a tight end who played the previous two seasons at TCU, was ruled disqualified by the NCAA due to the fact that he enrolled in classes at TCU for spring semester and after that dropped them after the university’s drop due date. Spivey informed ESPN that he was informed to enroll in the classes by his scholastic consultant and then to drop them after deciding to transfer to Mississippi State.Spivey earned a bachelor’s degree in basic studies from TCU in December 2022

. He’s on track to make a second degree in agriculture service from Mississippi State in December.Spivey found out that his last attract the NCAA had actually been rejected 2 days prior to recently’s season opener versus Southeast Louisiana.”We’re talking about a guy who’s graduated with his four-year degree,”Arnett told ESPN.”Take a look at the variety of graduate transfers playing throughout the nation this year. Spivey graduated from TCU, certainly they played in the national title game, therefore that enters into the second week of January.”I think it’s a joke. I believe it’s a joke that he’s not being permitted to play his final year of eligibility. Since they’re stating of some technicality, which TCU admitted that they had a flaw in their systems, and that they support him in his eligibility this year. “Editor’s Picks

Spivey, from Monroe, Louisiana, signed with Mississippi State in 2018 and began five games the next two seasons. He moved to TCU before the 2021 season due to the fact that then-Bulldogs coach Mike Leach’s Air Raid offense didn’t use tight ends. He began 3 games for the Horned Frogs in 2021 and had 11 catches for 136 backyards with one touchdown last season.Spivey stated he had to

wait a couple of weeks to talk to Horned Frogs coach Sonny Dykes about his future role with the group. By the time he decided to go back to Mississippi State, the deadline for dropping classes had currently passed. However Spivey said his scholastic advisor informed him he would remain qualified if he dropped the courses.In Feb. 27 text messages Spivey showed ESPN, his mom, Angela Spivey, asked Dr.

K.C. Mendez, then TCU’s director of football academic services, about obtaining a transcript that showed the classes had been dropped.Mendez responded:”I am dealing with compliance to make sure once I drop him he’s going to remain in the proper area for eligibility.”On March 2, Mendez sent out an email to Geor ‘quarius Spivey that said,”Your courses have been dropped.” “He went to the proper individual to go to,”

Angela Spivey said.” That was their task, and this happened. I just do not have any understanding of it. I

‘m hurt. I know my child is injured. But we, as his family, are extremely hurt, too. Like I say, this has actually been my baby’s goal since he was 4 years old. I’ll never forget it.”Angela Spivey said that when her kid was 4 years old, she asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He informed her that he wished to be an NFL player and a physician. “Well, come on, boy,”she told him. “We’re going to go all out. “Mississippi State athletic director Zac Selmon informed ESPN that the school

didn’t learn more about Spivey’s dropped classes till May.”

Spivey’s situation, in my viewpoint, is just a direct reflection of how our systems failed the kid,” Selmon stated.”And he trusted people that he viewed as reliable adult figures in the space. And then now, sadly, you don’t put a face to the boy, how good he’s doing. You take it to an arbitrary committee within the NCAA, and they have actually got a hundred things on their daily job plate at their organizations, so it’s tough to really get a reasonable shake at that. “You’re seeing it all around the nation, and I arrive is difficult cases. Individuals are constantly attempting to get a competitive advantage, however there’s likewise some cases that are common sense. And the NCAA, in my opinion, because of the manner in which it’s structured and the governance, has actually stopped working a great deal of young people to chances.”Selmon said that if the Bulldogs had actually understood Spivey had dropped the courses, they would have had him enlist in classes at Mississippi State to preserve his eligibility.”We didn’t want him to have to pay cash out of his own pocket to take classes he didn’t need,” Selmon said.”Had we known and had things been updated in real time, we could have

fixed the situation on our end too. “In September 2022, the NCAA Department I Council voted to permit college students to go into the transfer portal at any time. Undergraduate student-athletes should go into the transfer portal throughout sport-specific transfer windows.Last month, Purdue protective back Jamari Brown, a graduate transfer, left the Boilermakers throughout preseason practices. He transferred to Mississippi State 5 days later and is eligible to bet the Bulldogs this season.

Mississippi State is his third school; he originally signed with Kentucky. Former Oregon State running back Jamious Griffin moved to Ole Miss as a graduate transfer Aug. 4. “That’s the outrageous thing about this,”Arnett stated.”They’re ruling Spivey on a technicality that he’s ineligible to play his final year of eligibility, and we have people moving right up until fall camp, or perhaps after they’ve started fall training camp,

and they’re at new schools qualified to play and playing. What in the hell has the NCAA done to mess up this system?”Arnett’s comments come a day after Brown ripped the NCAA for ruling Kent State transfer Tez Walker disqualified. Walker tried to get a two-time transfer waiver since he wished to go to a school closer to home because of mental health difficulties and the reality his first school, FCS program, North Carolina Central, didn’t play football during the COVID-19 pandemic.”I don’t know that I’ve ever been more dissatisfied in a person, a group of people, or an organization than I am with the NCAA right now,”Brown said in a declaration.”It’s clear that the NCAA has to do with procedure and it could not care less about the young people it’s expected to be supporting.

Plain and easy, the NCAA has actually stopped working Tez and his household and I’ve lost all faith in its ability to lead and govern our sport.” Arnett and Selmon stated they ‘d do whatever they can to support Spivey. He was on the sideline for Mississippi State’s 48-7 victory recently.”They’re not the ones who need to look the kid in the face and inform him,’Hey, your appeal’s been rejected, your athletic career is done,’ “Arnett stated. “It is really easy. It’s actually easy to operate as a huge bureaucracy, no various than the federal government or the IRS, and hand down these rulings. They’re not the ones who have to inform the person of

the unfortunate news. “They simply return some bureaucratic reply to your compliance department, and then it gets communicated to you as the coach,’ Hey, call in so-and-so and tell him he’s ineligible.’But if you put out some BS mission declaration about you’re everything about the health and wellness of the student-athlete and support the student-athlete experience, well, your actions kind of speak louder than your words there on this one, NCAA.”