Sankey Joins Calipari to Demand College Sports Transfer Reset

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has probably been hanging around with Arkansas coach John Calipari lately because they are starting to send the same message.

College athletics cannot sustain unlimited transfer freedom without eligibility standards, and restoring a one-time transfer rule is the most realistic step toward stabilizing a system drifting further from its academic foundation.

Calipari has advocated for academics to be pushed to the forefront as the sanctity of the sport wanders to a new order where the power is mostly in the hands of its student-athletes.

“My advocacy would be, hey, we should be back to some type of one-time transfer exception,” Sankey said during the second quarter of a women's basketball game last Thursday. “But we have to support educational continuity if we truly believe that academics is the heart of what we do. And I’m a true believer in that.

“Yeah, we should be competitive. We should allow people to make decisions. This notion that we have 26, 27, 28-year-olds now playing against 19 and 20 year olds, that means there’s fewer opportunities to move from high school into college athletics. That’s not who we’ve been. That’s not who we should be. That’s where we get back to national standards, to the extent conferences need to manage that themselves. I think we’re ready to do that at the presidential level, that the NCAA can do that with kind of some new thinking and new rationale.”

Arkansas Razorbacks coach John Calipari during game against the Jackson State Tigers at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, Ark. | Nilsen Roman-allHOGS Images

There has been plenty of frustration around college football surrounding players looking to transfer to three or even four schools in a career. There are even those college football veterans who have found a way around the rules to receive an eighth year.

Whether injuries have impacted an athlete's career such as Cam McCormick (Miami), who played parts of nine seasons beginning at Oregon (2016-22) and Miami (2023-24), there has to be guard rails put in place to protect roster spots for younger athletes. While it was unfortunate McCormick suffered multiple lower leg injuries during his time in college, his situation defeats the purpose of college athletics.

USC linebacker Solomon Tuliaupupu was granted a ninth season while Miami linebacker Mohamed Toure was granted an eighth ahead of the 2026 season as each have struggled to stay healthy.

Whether the sport reverts to five years to play four, or ultimately five to play five, inconsistent eligibility rulings stemming from unlimited transfer opportunities and NIL is spiraling out of control.

In 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice reached a settlement with several other states that forced the NCAA to permanently remove restrictions on the number of times Division I athletes can transfer without sitting out a year as long as an athlete remains in good standing academically.

That opened up an opportunity for former JUCO players such as Vanderbilt's Diego Pavia to find a loophole in the system to not allow years spent at the junior college level to count against them.

The "Diego Pavia Rule" refers to the December 2024 preliminary injunction won by Pavia against the NCAA, which ruled that seasons played at junior colleges (JUCO) should not count toward an athlete's four seasons of NCAA eligibility.

This legal victory stemmed from an antitrust lawsuit alleging that JUCO seasons lack the same NIL, TV exposure, and competitive level as NCAA competition, and it led to a temporary 2025-26 NCAA waiver for similar players.

Following a victory over Fresno State earlier this season, Calipari shared his frustration with "older gentleman with beards" keeping eligibility in what became a viral soundbite on social media.

John Calipari on the state of college basketball:

“There are a lot of older gentlemen with beards playing college basketball right now. He’s waving up into the stands at his kids. Crazy thing, he's using NIL for his first wife's alimony. Are we nuts?" 😂pic.twitter.com/3TQSlGpSWf
— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) December 7, 2025

“There are a lot of older gentlemen with beards playing basketball in college right now,” Calipari said Dec. 8. “The one that’s crazy, the guy comes in, and he’s waving to his kids up in the seats. And you’re like, ‘Wait a minute. The guy’s got two kids. He’s still playing college basketball?’

“Crazy thing. He’s using NIL for his first wife’s alimony, and now he’s still playing college basketball. Are we nuts?”

Calipari still enjoys recruiting high school athletes who have a chance to be taken in the NBA Draft following their freshmen seasons in an effort to impact lives. He understands that his teams will always be younger than most teams that covet older transfers.

“Last year every team was old in our league, they were old,” Calipari said. “Now, you’re going to have those kinds of things. And you’re also going to have a team like a Fresno beat somebody because they’ve got all grad students, seniors, and their average age is 25, and your average age is 19 or 20.”

He has battled the unlimited transfer ruling, and even the possibility of former professionals returning to the college game to prosper off their name, image and likeness.

"I don't blame coaches," Calipari said following a victory over James Madison in December. "I've got friends that are playing with 27-year-olds and they feel bad. I said, 'Don't feel bad.' We don't have any rules. Why should you feel bad? Let me give you this, real simple: the rules bes the rules.

"If you put your name in the draft, I don't care if you're from Russia and you stay in the draft, you can't play college basketball. Well, that's only for American kids. What? If your name is in that draft and you got drafted, you can't play because that's our rule. But that's only for American kids. OK."

He went on to defend his career-long plan of taking care of high school athletes who are impacted most.

"Does anybody care what this is doing for 17- and 18-year-old American kids?" Calipari said. "Do you know what this opportunity has done for them and their families? There aren't going to be any high school kids. Who other than dumb people like me are going to recruit high school kids? I'm going to keep doing it. But why would anybody else if you can get NBA players, G League players, guys that are 28 years old, guys from Europe?"

Hogs Feed: