[lawrence-newsletter]
University of Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh wrote a letter yesterday detailing his wish for a new rule that would allow college football players to enter the NFL draft at any time during their college careers, one which would say goodbye to the current rule requiring players to be three years removed from high school before moving on to the next level.
The impact of this new rule–one which will obviously need a lot to change in order to be implemented–would not necessarily directly affect Paul Chryst and the Wisconsin football program as their program is built on developing young players and having them stay for the whole four years. The one team in the Big Ten it would drastically affect: the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Is this just Harbaugh trying to level the playing field against his arch rival after starting his career at Michigan with a 0-5 record against the Buckeyes? Maybe. But looking at the long-shot scenario where this rule does go into effect, the team it may benefit the most would be the Wisconsin Badgers.
Since Chryst took over as head coach in 2014, he and his team have made it to the Big Ten Championship in Indianapolis in three of his five full years–2016, 2017 and 2019.
All three of those contests, as Badger fans know, resulted in a hard-fought loss, with the 2017 and 2019 defeats both came at the hands of Ohio State.
Now this news would obviously even the playing field between the East Division rivals Michigan and Ohio State, as the Buckeyes are the one SEC-like team in the Big Ten who comes away with a nationally-ranked top-5 recruiting class every year, top recruits who would be the ones to take advantage of the rule and leave early for the NFL after one or two years.
The biggest effect it would have, though, is giving the Badgers’ significantly better chances in their future matchups in the conference championship against the Buckeyes, matchups which look to be common given the trajectory of each team compared to the rest of their division.
Look at 2019’s 34-21 loss to the Buckeyes in the Big Ten Championship. Now picture Ohio State in that matchup without the services of Chase Young, J.K. Dobbins, Jeff Okudah and possibly Justin Fields.
Instead of the three-year rule requiring Young, Dobbins, Okudah and Fields to play for the Buckeyes in 2019, Harbaugh’s proposed amendment would’ve allowed the players to have entered the NFL draft before their 2019 seasons.
These are obviously all hypotheticals, as it is entirely possible all of the players listed above would have stayed in college regardless. When Harbaugh’s letter came out, though, it was impossible to not imagine how this year would have gone differently, and how going forward it could help the Badgers win their first Big Ten title since 2012.