The Amarius Mims transfer shows SEC got it right

If school soccer’s switch construction works the best way it was designed throughout final 12 months’s reconfiguration, then former Georgia offensive lineman Amarius Mims will land at a college exterior the SEC, the place he’ll earn extra enjoying time.

Mims, a sophomore, is a former five-star recruit who had not secured a beginning job after signing with Georgia over Tennessee and Alabama. Georgia offensive lineman Sedrick Van Pran described Mims as “a generational expertise” earlier this spring, however offensive tackles Warren McClendon or Broderick Jones blocked Mims’ path to the primary string.

Had Mims caught it out at Georgia, he possible would have turn out to be a starter sooner or later. However he did not wish to wait, and now he is free to switch with out penalty to a different program the place he’ll in all probability be a surefire starter – simply not inside the SEC.

WHERE WILL AMARIUS MIMS GO?:Heralded Georgia switch visits Florida State

The SEC permits first-time transfers who enter the portal by Feb. 1 to maneuver to a different convention faculty with out having to sit down out a season. By coming into the portal after that deadline, Mims would wish an SEC waiver to achieve fast eligibility if he transferred inside the convention. In any other case, he’d have to sit down.

In accordance with a number of reviews, Mims shouldn’t be planning to roll the cube with a waiver from the SEC. He visited Florida State on Wednesday, and Miami additionally headlines his listing of suitors, 247Sports reported.

Both vacation spot would end in a clean-cut final result with none want for the controversial waiver course of. 

The discount of waiver instances is among the many optimistic byproducts of the NCAA’s 2021 switch rule change that permits first-time transfers to freely transfer with out sitting a season. 

Waivers have been a well-intended method to offer fast eligibility exemptions for athletes who transferred beneath particular circumstances, equivalent to needing to be nearer to an ailing dad or mum. Over time, although, athletes (and their attorneys) exploited the waiver course of and cooked up explanations of various levels of reality to attempt to justify receipt of a waiver. NCAA waiver rulings have been a gradual, inconsistent course of with out public rationalization of the decision-making.

Whether or not an athlete received a waiver typically gave the impression to be a case of how good the athlete’s lawyer was, which definitely was not how the method was designed.

By setting a Feb. 1 deadline for intraconference transfers, the SEC gave athletes a alternative: Enter the portal by that deadline, or plan to play exterior the convention or sit a season. Though waivers nonetheless exist, they’re a less-attractive pursuit when a participant like Mims is assured fast eligibility so long as he transfers exterior the SEC.

The SEC’s Feb. 1 deadline is affordable. It presents a window after the season for gamers to switch and freely take into account different SEC packages. But it surely additionally creates a barrier for athletes, like Mims, who determine to switch a number of months earlier than the next season begins.

Encouraging transfers to happen earlier within the calendar offers coaches extra time to evaluate and assemble their roster for the upcoming season.

Greatest-case state of affairs for Georgia would have been to retain Mims, however not less than the Bulldogs haven’t got to fret about seeing him in one other SEC uniform in 2022, and Mims would not should sweat the waiver course of so long as he picks a college exterior the convention.

That is a good course of, not like the arbitrary waiver system.

Blake Toppmeyer is an SEC Columnist for the USA TODAY Community. Electronic mail him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and observe him on Twitter @btoppmeyer. When you take pleasure in Blake’s protection, take into account a digital subscription that may enable you entry to all of it.