The Big Ten is trying to control the chaos.
Via Pete Thamel of ESPN, the conference is expected to pass a rule on Tuesday barring anyone who has been on an NFL team from being on a Big Ten roster.
It’s unclear whether the rule will be enforceable. If the players have secured an injunction that allows them to return to college for a year, collective action to ban them from a group of college programs would potentially amount to the same kind of antitrust violations that have created the current ripple effects.
Of course, the Big Ten may not care. With the return of NFL players to college programs instantly becoming a widely unpopular development, the dynamic becomes an opportunity to try to build more momentum to get the Protect College Sports Act passed — thereby giving the NCAA the antitrust exemption it craves, along with the ability to partially pick the pockets of players who have leveraged the reckoning into revenue that would otherwise go directly to the schools.
In other words, it’s more performative than substantive. Like the outcry after Brendan Sorsby won an injunction to play at Texas Tech. People don’t like the idea of NFL players returning to college programs (never mind the fact that Nick Saban invited former NFL players to practice with current Alabama players), and that disdain can be used to help the system get what it so badly wants.