NCAA considering more changes and once again, Washington State’s Leach doesn’t approve

PULLMAN – The NCAA might make a few more edits to its rule book in the near future and like usual, Washington State’s Mike Leach won’t be one of those endorsing.

According to 247Sports, the governing body of college sports is considering a reform of the transfer rule that forces Division I athletes to sit out for an entire season before they’re eligible to play. The revision would allow student-athletes to transfer without waiting, as long as they meet a certain GPA standard. Those who don’t hit the academic benchmark would still have to sit out.

According to the report, a collection of commissioners, athletic directors, coaches and student-athletes formed a task force earlier this year – it’s known as the Division I Transfer Working Group – and posed the idea along with a few others to make “progress on creating uniformity in transfer rules.”

Leach has been outspoken in his opposition of various NCAA amendments throughout the years and the WSU coach took a stance against the latest proposal when asked about it Tuesday after practice in Pullman.

“I’m against it,” Leach said. “If they graduate, that’s one thing. If they graduate, that’s a different deal because you’re promoting graduation. But if you commit to one school, you should have to stay. You commit to a school, they extend a scholarship which is worth a great deal of money, they should have to stay there.”

Currently, student-athletes can “grad transfer” without sitting if they’ve received a diploma from one school and attend another institution that carries the graduate program they wish to enroll in.

In early August, Leach refuted the NCAA’s recent ban on satellite camps and commented on another modification that disallows football programs from holding two-a-day practices. He doesn’t have strong feelings one way or the other about outlawing two-a-days because the Cougars didn’t utilize them. What ticks off Leach is the NCAA’s habit of toying with the rules that are already in place – most of which are fine as is, the coach says.

“I think the (transfer) rule’s fine right now and I think the guys thinking about that stuff need to golf instead of tinker with the rule book all the time,” Leach said.

GOOD, BUT MORA’S SEEN BETTER

It was an ending that could’ve only been scripted in Hollywood.

Josh Rosen’s fake spike-turned-touchdown pass was the improbable final nail in the Texas A&M coffin Sunday evening at the Rose Bowl, where UCLA came back from 34 points down to stun the Aggies in what would become the second-largest comeback in FBS history.

It was wild, crazy and frenetic, but UCLA coach Jim Mora has seen better.

Mora was the defensive backs coach for the San Francisco 49ers in 1998 when Terrell Owens made a historic catch – to this day, known as “The Catch II” – to beat the Green Bay Packers in the playoffs. Five years later, he was a defensive coordinator when San Francisco rallied from a 24-point deficit against the New York Giants to win a 2003 NFC Wild Card game.

“I’ve been in a lot of games like this,” Mora said Tuesday on the Pac-12 teleconference. “That’s what happens when you survive and get old like I’ve been able to, so the key is to just maintain a level of consistency in terms of your demeanor. I’m really working hard to do that.”

DUCKS SMOKED OUT OF EUGENE

As wildfire smoke continued to infuse the Willamette Valley, Willie Taggart and the Oregon football team loaded up a few school buses and left for the Oregon Coast, where they’d hold a normal mid-week practice some 60 miles away at Siuslaw Middle School.

The Ducks have a state-of-the-art indoor practice facility on campus in Eugene, but air quality was so hazardous that even a workout in the Moshofky Center might have been ill-advised, Taggart told local media.

“We want to go out and be able to practice like we’re used to practicing, without any other distractions,” the first-year Ducks coach said.

Oregon welcomes Nebraska to Eugene on Saturday and Oregon State hosts Minnesota in Corvallis. No time or location adjustments have been made to either game, though Pac-12 vice president of public affairs Andrew Walker said “information provided by the air protection agency” will determine whether changes need to be made.