RIVAL VIEWS: Should McCoy have to sit out a year at Texas?
I stood in the stairwell of the Yard House restaurant in downtown San Antonio earlier this month and had a lengthy phone conversation with Horace McCoy, the father of five-star athlete Bru McCoy.
At dinner, I had just heard a rumor. That McCoy was going to commit to USC at the All-American Bowl a few days later but if then-offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury took another job in the offseason, McCoy would consider entering the transfer portal for his other favorite – Texas.
Horace McCoy did not confirm nor deny the rumor but he did laugh and say that was not the plan at the moment.
A few weeks later, that’s exactly what happened. The Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei prospect has decided to transfer from USC and head to Texas after Kingsbury left USC a few days after McCoy’s commitment to accept the Arizona Cardinals head coaching job.
And so at Rivals.com, because of McCoy’s decision, a new recruiting rule has been implemented that will determine which class the five-star – and others in the same situation in the future – will count toward.
“We’re instituting what we’re calling the Bru McCoy Rule, which is anybody who transfers between the early signing period or early enrollment and the second signing period counts toward the class they transfer to,” Rivals.com National Recruiting Director Mike Farrell said.
“This is the first time that we know that this has ever happened. This is a product not only of the early signing period because even if he was an early enrollee this would have happened. It’s important because for regular transfers they have to go to JUCO for us to get a new evaluation on them because they’re so far removed from their high school days. In this case, we just got a new evaluation on him in early January.
“We know what we’re dealing with here as far as a player and because the transfer happened so fast from the time he signed to the time he transferred it would be ridiculous for us to not count him in the Texas class. It was literally a few weeks.”
The breakdown of the new rule says this: If a prospect transfers between the first signing period and the second signing period he’s going to count toward the second class. If he transfers after the late signing period in February, then an evaluation needs to be made on a case-by-case basis.
There have been recruiting situations where prospects transfer because of family issues or other circumstances before ever playing at the school where they originally signed but those occurred when there was only one signing period and it was regularly months after signing day.
Another issue that has arisen in years past is that of a prospect who transferred from a school but did not play in junior college and thus did not count toward the new school’s class because there was no new evaluation opportunity for them and they were so far removed from high school.
The Bru McCoy Rule is new ground for Rivals.com and the ever-changing recruiting landscape. It’s a first, and it requires a new procedure.
“With this being a new situation, with this being so quick, this is a kid who just announced for USC, enrolled at USC and now he’s going to be at Texas within a few weeks of his commitment, it makes no sense to keep him in the USC class,” Farrell said.
“This is a brand-new area for us. This has never happened before to our knowledge.”
