The Big Problem With the Big 12’s New Transfer Policy Rule

The recent Sam Ukwuachu Baylor rape case has been endlessly fascinating to me as I’m sure it has been to numerous people. There are so many angles to the story, the least important of which involved football.

But where football and real life coincide could be in the Big 12’s attempt to prevent something similar to this from happening in the future.

Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby told The Associated Press on Wednesday he “expects the new rule to be structured like the one implemented by the Southeastern Conference. The SEC prevents schools from accepting transfers who have been dismissed from another team for ‘serious misconduct,’ defined as sexual assault, domestic violence or other forms of sexual violence.”

One problem with that.

Ukwuachu wasn’t dismissed for serious misconduct. At least it doesn’t appear that way. Here’s what that ESPN article I just linked also notes:

[Boise State] also said federal student privacy laws prohibit officials from releasing information about what led to Ukwuachu being dismissed from the team.

So what good is the new policy?

“Nothing is going to completely solve the problem because every instance is different,” Bowlsby said. “What our rule will do is mandate due diligence. If you go through the right processes you’re likely to come across the things that you want to discover before a decision is made.”

“I think institutions will perform that due diligence and they’ll make their own decisions and I think that would include things like academic fraud. They’ll include problems that (an athlete) may have had in high school. Violence against women, certainly that was the initiative that put us in this position,” Bowlsby said. “I think it’s a broader net than that. I think it’s a responsibility to do the work so that you know who you are bringing to campus.”

That looks very strong in print and sounds great. But the problem runs deeper. What about cases like Ukwuachu where players weren’t necessarily dismissed for domestic violence? What about … high school students?

The one thing this does is sort of pile on to the new Ray Rice era that is more vocal (in a good way) about domestic violence and sexual assault. The Big 12 can’t implement every rule for every situation, but it can implement a broad, sweeping rule that sort of warns schools “don’t pull a Baylor.”

That’s a good thing. I just hope it helps.