ROSE BOWL: Oregon’s Playoff Eligibility at Risk

Forewarning, this story, while very interesting, has nothing to do with the Stanford Cardinal. If you are not interested, feel free to check out the many awesome fanshots we have posted lately.

UPDATE: one of our readers, rgdailey, informed us in the comments section that The Register Guard in Eugene, Oregon is reporting that a tentative agreement has been reached between the parties in the labor dispute.

Read more HERE.

"Graduate teaching fellows at the University of Oregon are expected back at work this morning following the announcement of a tentative labor contract ending the strike the GTFs launched on Dec. 1."

According to The Oregonian, 1,500 Teaching Assistants at the University of Oregon are on strike. The main point of contention seems to be medical and maternity leave. As a result of the strike, the final grades for many students may not be submitted to the University. This could result in many students, including Oregon football players, to receive an incomplete for their final grade. Receiving an incomplete could leave football players academically ineligible to play in the Rose Bowl according to NCAA regulations.

Our friends at Pacific Takes explain:

"Oregon's grad students are striking due to demands for paid medical and maternity leave each year. Oregon grad students also are responsible for much of the information necessary to hand out grades for the semester. If professors don't end up receiving any of that info, they may be forced to give students a grade of "X" (no grade), which would eventually be changed once the strike ends.

How does that potentially affect Oregon football? Well, "X" grades are counted as incompletes for NCAA eligibility. The NCAA requires that athletes have a passing GPA to play in a New Year's Day bowl game, and that GPA must be in place two weeks after the exams from last term's end. So a bunch of Ducks could end up with a lot of incomplete grades, which would cause eligibility concerns for January 1st."

It is highly unlikely that the University will allow this situation to escalate to the point of player ineligibility. According to The Oregonian, the University of Oregon interim President Scott Coltrane has announced that the school will provide many students with the option of accepting the grades they had as of December 1st (before the strike) while others will take simpler and ostensibly easier to grade exams. With the requirement that grades be in place two weeks after the term ends to be eligible to play in a bowl game, the clock is ticking for Oregon student athletes hoping to compete in the Rose Bowl.