Didn't know where to post this, but I had this thought earlier today.
If the new JUCO ruling stays as the new rule and years in JUCO don't count towards NCAA eligibility, do you think ND could actually take some guys from JUCOs? The obvious answer is no because we never really have, but that was when the players credits would have had to transfer just to keep him eligible and they likely wouldn't have transferred. If the NCAA can't count JUCO years towards eligibility, they probably also can't count those years in progress toward degree requirements. That means ND could essentially not take any credits and essentially pretend even a two year JUCO player is a true freshman.
Now, obviously a lot of JUCO guys are there because they don't have the grades, so they likely wouldn't make it at ND anyway. But there are some who probably could make it but are at JUCOs for football development reasons. And this is likely to be the case even more often if the JUCO ruling stays in place.
The reason this thought came to me was because I read a joke about how many years players could play college football with all the exceptions and waivers, but it hit me that it might actually be a good way for us to help solve our problem with DT recruiting. It could be nice to have rotation guys that are essentially 7th year players by the time they exhaust their eligibility. That is two extra years in college strength programs and two extra years of physical maturity. Maybe the pool of guys we could get would never be as good as Cross or Mills, but with the extra long playoff seasons, it would be pretty nice to have that extra playable depth.