NCAA Moving Fall Championships to Spring

The NCAA’s Division I Board of Directors announced Friday that its members have voted to move its fall sports championships, including soccer, volleyball, cross country and others, to the spring, and scale back the tournaments' sizes though we’re not sure by how much.

It’s critically important to remember that this has nothing to do with FBS football, since the NCAA does not sponsor a championship at the FBS and thus has no jurisdiction over it. This announcement applies only to the sports in which the NCAA sponsors a championship.

In addition, the Board announced that fall sport student-athletes “will receive both an additional year of eligibility and an additional year in which to complete it ... through a blanket waiver.”

This means that, as far as UCF Knights athletes are concerned, volleyball, soccer and cross country athletes will all get an extra year of eligibility. That’s a BIG win for the coaches.

The NCAA also announced the following policies:

• Schools are prohibited from requiring student-athletes to waive legal rights regarding COVID-19 as a condition of athletics participation.
• Schools are prohibited from canceling or reducing athletics scholarships if a college athlete in any sport opts not to participate due to COVID-19.
• Student-athletes who do not enroll full time during the 2020 fall term have flexibility in the progress-toward-degree requirements that must be met for eligibility in future terms.
• The financial aid of fall sport senior student-athletes who take advantage of the additional year of eligibility and extended clock will not count against team limits in 2021-22.

As of right now, The American has made no decisions about what it will do with volleyball, soccer and cross country, which are the three fall Olympic sports UCF participates in.

Conference USA, however, has already made its call, moving everything except football to the fall:

This story is developing. We’ll update you as soon as we hear anything from The American or UCF.