George White: D1 Coach Breaks Down NCAA’s New Eligibility Rules

Join Cory Heitz and George White—former Harvard basketball player, D1 coach, and founder of RecruitU—as they dissect the NCAA’s proposed "5-and-5 rule", a game-changer for prep school basketball and college recruitment. George breaks down how this rule will limit eligibility to five years (starting at high school graduation or age 19), restrict transfers to one immediate move, and impact NIL deals, post-grad years, and injury waivers. Discover why post-grad years still hold value for late bloomers, how mid-major programs may benefit, and the hidden risks for injured athletes and reclassified players. This is must-listen intel for parents, players, and coaches navigating the evolving prep-to-college pipeline.

💡 Key Topics:
📌 NCAA 5-and-5 Rule Explained: 5 years of eligibility, transfer restrictions, and clock start triggers
📌 Post-Grad Year Impact: Does a PG year still make sense under the new rules?
📌 NIL & Transfer Market Shifts: How the rule could reduce NIL leverage for transfers
📌 Coach & Program Reactions: Mid-majors vs. power conferences—who wins and who loses?
📌 Injury & Waiver Risks: The unintended consequences for injured athletes
📌 Reclassing Strategies: Why early reclassing in grade school could backfire

🏀 About George White:
George White is a former Harvard basketball player, D1 coach, and the founder of RecruitU, a consulting firm specializing in college recruitment strategies. With decades of experience at every level of basketball—from playing in the Ivy League to coaching in D1 programs—George provides unfiltered insights into the NCAA’s rule changes and their real-world impact on athletes, families, and programs. His expertise in player development, recruitment trends, and NIL dynamics makes him a trusted voice for navigating the prep-to-college pipeline.

🔗 Connect with George White:
Website | www.recruituapp.com
Email | marketing@recruituapp.com
Twitter | x.com/RecruitUapp1
Instagram | www.instagram.com/ugetrecruited/
LinkedIn | www.linkedin.com/company/recruiting-sports-network/

🔗 Connect with Cory:
 
Website | https://www.prepathletics.com
Twitter | https://twitter.com/PREP_Athletics
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/prep.athletics/
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/PrepAthletics
Email | coryheitz@gmail.com
Phone | 859-317-1166

🔖 Subscribe to the PREP Athletics Podcast:

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Spotify | https://open.spotify.com/show/6CAKbXFiIOhoHinzsReYbJ
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Transcript

Cory Heitz (00:00)
Hello friends and welcome to this week's episode of the prep athletics podcast. This is a bonus slash emergency podcast. Not that it's that dire, but wanted to get the information out as soon as possible about the new proposed NCaA rule called five and five. So you got five years to play basketball now. No more red shirts, no more waivers. have to transfer once without sitting out after that. You have to sit out.

and much, much more. we go over that today on this podcast with George White, George White played at Harvard. He's coached at every level and he, he is got his finger on the pulse of this stuff. And this is a proposed rule. This NCAA, announcement is proposed, probably voting on it in the next two months and we'll know more clearly what is actually in it, but you got to prepare for it. Got to be flexible. And the big news for the prep athletics world is

According to this new rule, if you do a post-grad year, that will count towards your eligibility in college, right? That'll be part of your five years to do it. So we talk about that on this podcast today, but I just want to get my two cents on it. You know, back before COVID, the norm was playing four years of college basketball. Yes, you could redshirt. Yes, if you're injured, you know, you get a year and then there were also waivers that people were taking advantage of over the years to where they wanted to transfer schools and they would.

put in a waiver for a hardship and then the NCAA would grant us. The NCAA wants to make this much more simple, right? It's when you graduate high school or whenever you turn 19, whichever happens first, that's when your clock starts. Okay. There's a lot of articles online talking about this. We get into this in the podcast as well. We're still learning about it, but each family is going to have to make a decision on what they want to do. Right? Like I mentioned before COVID, the norm was to play four years of college ball, right?

And that's been taken advantage of, I know COVID granted the extra year. So people were trying to do that. You've got kids now transferring every year, trying to get more NIL money. And they don't have to sit out. So the NCAA is trying to clear things up. Yes, there may be lawsuits. Yes, there may be some revisions before this actually gets put into law. We will wait and see, but I wanted to give you the information on this. So let's assume for this conversation that prep or post-grade year counts towards your college eligibility.

What are your options then? You can either do post-grad, you can either do Juco, which once again takes eligibility, or three, you can either go to the college that's currently recruiting you, no matter if it's D1, D2, D3, NAIA, right? All three options now start your clock, where in the old days, right? Previous to this, a post-grad year would not start your clock. That was one of the big advantages. But still, you do a post-grad year, you get the advantage of potentially playing in front of people that have never seen you before. You got a chance to get emotionally mature.

physically mature and that prep school coach has to place you in college, right? It's part of what you're paying for. Juco coaches don't have to place you in college, right? D3, D2, NAIA coaches might not help you transfer up if you've done really good at that level. So I still believe in post-grad as a great option. And we talk about all of this with George White on this upcoming podcast episode. So if you like this and you like the intel, please share this with a friend.

And go subscribe to our YouTube channel and all the podcasting platforms and go to prepathletics.com and fill out a free assessment if you want to learn if prep school is the right fit for you. So with that being said, enjoy this quick bonus episode with RecruitU founder, former D1 player and D1 coach, George White.

Cory Heitz (03:55)
George, welcome back to the podcast.

George White (03:58)
Thanks Cory, great to see you and great to be here again. I know it's kind of an emergency one, so anyway, look forward to it.

Cory Heitz (04:07)
emergency one. Wanted to get you on because you have a broken down in plain English, the proposed NCAa five and five rules. So, in plain English, can you kind of give the listeners and me a breakdown of what this is?

George White (04:23)
Yeah, essentially the NCAA has a proposal to only allow five years of eligibility, which starts at the earlier of the athlete graduated from high school or turning 19, age of 19, okay? So it's gonna get rid of red shirts, waivers, know, all these contesting eligibility, you know.

negotiations, all that stuff. But the other big piece of it is going to limit transfers to one time, one transfer in order to play immediately. So if you transfer more than once, essentially you're going to lose your eligibility. So that's really changing the current landscape.

Cory Heitz (05:11)
And what is the problem the NCAA is trying to solve with this new ruling?

George White (05:17)
Well, it's just this whole eligibility thing is all over the place.

Waivers are very inconsistent. So the NCAA really wants to simplify your life more than anything else so they don't have to be in the waiver business and also create a lot more uncertainty. So a lot of this is kind of roster uncertainty. And I think quite frankly, the NCAA is also trying to limit NIL payments going forward, which in my view, this gives them a platform which would do that.

Cory Heitz (05:54)
How will this limit my NIL if it's getting rid of waivers and wedge shirts?

George White (05:57)
Well, it's not gonna be

as competitive. it's gonna shift the focus of recruiting away from transfers and all the money that's flowing in that world to high school athletes. you're gonna be, coaches are gonna, and people are gonna try to justify reducing their NAL, revenue share payments to high school kids, basically by saying, well, you're not proving that.

And when they recruit transfers, like transfers as you know, they're transferring three and four times. So every time they transfer, they're upping their ante in terms of their NNL payment. So that's not going to happen. They're not going to be able to start at, you know, 50 grand and then transfer again to get 75 and, you know, always trying to get more. That's going to be not the case, obviously, with this new proposal. So their leverage is very limited.

Cory Heitz (06:51)
Alright.

Okay, interesting. Now, if a player is a late bloomer, like a lot of kids we work with that want to do a post-grad year, does this rule help them or hurt them?

George White (07:05)
Well, you know, I don't, there's a misperception. You do have one question about what confusion parents have. And think athletes have it too. This is not really, if you lose your year of eligibility, if you take a PG year, which essentially you will be, because that's obviously after your high school graduation.

in the big picture, that's not really hurting. Like you and I played for four years in college and had a great experience. And for that matter, we're probably ready to move on after four years anyway, right? so just putting in perspective.

And the big picture is not really hurting them. It's only limiting their ability to play five years if they do a PG year. Now, I'm a big advocate, like you are, of a PG year if it's going to move the needle. So it could move the needle in terms of their development and elevate their recruiting.

And or can move the needle in terms of elevating their academic standing. if the kid is borderline patriot, they even he goes to a respected, they know what prep school, you know, like Walter Academy does well academically, it might pump him up to, you know, from an acceptance standpoint to a patriot school or even an Isaac. so I'm anything I see here is not anti PG year by any stretch. So.

But what you're going to have is going to be more pressure to reclass earlier.

Cory Heitz (08:32)
you

Yeah, which is not a bad thing. I think it's just more of letting families know that they might lose a year doing a post-grad if this rule passes. And then if they decide to reclass earlier, they will save that. But this means families have to know about that option and have to leave a high school they might be pleased with to do that. So this will be a case by case basis for families. They'll each have to figure out, right?

George White (09:04)
Yeah, for sure. mean, we work with high schools now, advising them on this reclass process. I'm actively working with a handful right now and actually providing them with strategies to help them retain athletes because you have, as you know, lot of prep schools, even other high schools and sports academies trying to post athletes in situations where people can mention where a kid has a stable situation, but there's so much outside pressure.

to grab athletes from other schools. And particularly this amount, you know, it's going to get tougher for prep schools and sports academies because of this demographic cliff which we talked about last time. So that means that the number of students at the college age has really dropped off dramatically. So in some ways it cripples down the athletes as well. So everyone's going to be trying to grab a smaller pool or kind of making promises that aren't realistic to you.

kids that might be fringe athletes along with that. yeah, I am strategizing with schools to address this. I can't really share that at this point, but anyway, a lot of dynamics on that side of the place going. That's cool.

Cory Heitz (10:21)
Yeah. What do college basketball coaches think of this proposed ruling?

George White (10:27)
depends on your level. So if you're like mid-major and below or below powerful conferences, they're really excited because it means they're no longer kind of the G League or the power conferences, you where they're developing players or recruiting the best players for the year. It helps them retain their players at a better rate.

And also, you know, the high D1s have basically had their pick of the litter in terms of the transfers. So, you know, they're stocked with very experienced, I mean, as you saw, just look at the two teams that won the NCAA championship game this year, you know, loaded with the transfers. So, and many of them have, you know, jumped up each year. Like you have, you know, Russell Ramble from Michigan who's played at, I think.

for schools including Juco, that's not going to be the case anymore. So we're going to have to rely more on development and the power conferences and recruiting high school kids, whereas the lower level conferences, they're going to be less impacted by losing their best player every year. It might happen, but they'll get more stability and make it more competitive.

Cory Heitz (11:45)
What about the high majors? How will this affect them?

George White (11:49)
Well, again, they're gonna have to spend more of time recruiting high school athletes, although I think athletes will be transferring, they still can do it one time. So that pool will be smaller every year. So I still think...

Cory Heitz (11:57)
Mmm.

George White (12:10)
probably confidence we will probably have the pick of those players to a certain extent, but we won't be as worried about that. So on the fringes, know, the end of somebody's expanding the tournament, but on the fringes of that, you Mississippi State is not going to be, for example, a player for the top transfer into smaller pool. So.

I'm using them as a knuckle just because they don't have the NIL money and the ability to put a lot of schools in the power four or into their heads financially. I'm trying to get this done. So that will help mid-majors to a certain extent because they'll have more stability and ideally they'll be able to not have as much transfer turnover with the players year by year. So power four at the highest levels, you know,

Kansas is, it'll help get them back to the top somewhat. Those with the biggest resources, Michigan, will stay there. Ohio State, haven't gotten done, but they have a lot of money.

So you're just going to have a smaller pool and those that can pay will be able to do well on that every year. even as the pair goes down major conferences, they'll be brought down closer to the level of mid-major in terms of competitiveness.

Cory Heitz (13:34)
George, who is this gonna hurt the most?

George White (13:39)
There's a couple of categories. I guess I'm not sure who will be the most. mean, the first one would be athletes that reclassified already in grade school, since this is going to take effect pretty quickly. So if you had an athlete that reclassified in eighth grade, they can't do it again in high school. That's going to put them over the age limit. And then if they want to...

like take a PG year after graduating high school, then they may actually lose a couple of years of eligibility instead of one. So I guess the moral there is don't reclass in grade school to a certain extent if you want to go a PG year. Although there are going to be those that are leveraging that to a certain extent. But that's kind of whole nother discussion. As I mentioned,

I think NIL money will be reduced at the mid to lower level of athlete. the third group, is the one that I'm most concerned about, is athletes who get injured. if you're injured, especially if you've already transferred once, number one, which happens, unfortunately, all the time, your current school

Cory Heitz (14:54)
Yeah.

George White (15:08)
might push you out in some manner. Okay. Then your landing spots are going to be limited because you're still going to have to sit out a year. And then, you know, and obviously schools recruiting you with an injury are even going to be, you know, more limited due to their concerns about your health. So that's my biggest fear with this as it pertains to.

in your athletes because it's so unfortunate cutthroat especially at the highest levels that those guys get pushed out even if they do have more eligibility left.

Cory Heitz (15:52)
What if you're on a team and your coach leaves? Do you have any, can you transfer after that and under this new ruling without losing a year or having to sit out?

George White (16:02)
Well, I don't know. mean, the Antibale hasn't, you know, put all the beef around this yet. So, you know, when you dig into the weeds like that, I don't know how they're going to handle those situations. I mean, ideally, yes, but, you know, they're trying to limit transfer. So they may just say, well, you know, we're already giving you an extra year. So you're not going to be able to get a waiver for.

coach leading. So I suspect not because they're trying to get out of the waiver business in general. So while it seems unfair, it's just I think could be the reality of it. you know the moral of that is you really, we can talk about this a little bit more later, you really need to choose a school for holistic reasons, not because of the coach, because there's so much coaching instability these days that you almost have to assume, especially at

Cory Heitz (16:54)
Yeah.

George White (17:03)
men major or above that your coach is going to at some point during your career with so much turnover going on. So you really have to choose it for the school, for your academic interests, you know, the long-term benefits of it and not, you know, because you're in love with the coach.

Cory Heitz (17:22)
Yeah, now explain this to me. If I'm a regular four year high school student, graduate and I go to a D1 program, okay, and I got five years to do four years, can I, if I just stay at the same school, can I play there five years or can I only play there four years?

George White (17:39)
Well, no, it's five and five. if you transfer as a PG, you don't have four years, but out of high school, you would have five years. So have five years of eligibility. So, so, yeah, you could stay at that school and play all five years because that's your the new agreement. Whereas before you had, as you mentioned, without the waivers, basically five years to play for. So now you can play.

Cory Heitz (17:50)
Right.

George White (18:08)
full five years if you decide to do that but you do have the benefit like if I were an athlete I would try to play four years at one school and then I would use my fifth year like in the Ivy League you where I played you can only play four years no matter what but um say I had five years at you know uh University of Richmond

That was my choice. So I would play four years at Richmond, and then would try to find, assuming I was attractive enough as a transfer, a school to transfer to, or even State Richmond, if they offered graduate programs to get a master's degree, or make progress towards a master's degree. So essentially, you're getting, if you're prudent with your academics and making progress, you basically can get a college to pay for

part of if not all your master's degree if you go right with this additional year. In my mind that's the really smart way to handle it because you're just positioning yourself for more opportunities in the future outside your sport.

Cory Heitz (19:23)
Absolutely.

Will there be lawsuits from families based on this ruling, do you think?

George White (19:31)
I anticipate there will, I mean there's been lawsuits every step of the way here. I mean this seems like a more rational way to approach things, but like there will be lingering junior college athletes trying to get credit for the one or two years they played in junior college, which this rule is actually attempting to alleviate and kind of address and give them, you know, some benefit that they might not.

sue about. I the group that is most likely to sue is this current year of college graduates because they could you know basically say well we should be grandfathered in and get an additional year so those suits may happen. I'm hoping that the NCAA will be able to weather that and kind of move forward with this plan they have. I think it is best for all intended, know, all involved.

Cory Heitz (20:32)
And what about, does this address players who have already played professionally in Europe or in the G-Lig as well?

George White (20:40)
Well, it doesn't address that. The NCAA has tried to create other rulings around this, one of which recently passed. It really directly limits, especially G League players. The one impact it will have is, like Illinois had a couple guys as freshmen, they were 20 and 21 years old this year. They can still do that, but those guys are going to have one or two years of eligibility left. So it's going to limit their time.

horizon to play at the Division 1 level. So in effect it will have an impact on those guys, assuming they wanted to play a full four years.

Cory Heitz (21:22)
Yeah. So if you're an overseas player and that's pretty good, you got away the option of coming over at 19 or staying with your, your pro team in Europe. And then there's agents involved trying to figure out how they can probably maximize maximize profit. So that'll be interesting to see what the foreign market does.

George White (21:38)
Yeah, I mean, as you know, what's really kind of heated that up is their ability to pay players now. Like before, you know, we did have foreign players coming over, but the club teams over there were able to retain in lot of ways the better ones because they could pay them more. Or for that matter, they weren't eligible because they were getting paid. That's obviously been loosened. So, yeah, it will happen, but they're...

their tenure is just going to be shortened if they can come over and play.

Cory Heitz (22:10)
Yeah, absolutely.

So what does this mean for kids that want to do a post-grad year? If this rule passes, walk me through your opinion on that.

George White (22:21)
Well, I think, you know, I'm kind of neutral. I'm in favor of PG year even before this happened. Like my brother did a PG year at Lawrenceville and it made a huge difference for him. So there are benefits to a PG year that go beyond athletics, one of which is a year of maturity. It's also a year of how to study, you know, how to handle your academics.

at a higher level, a more challenging environment, number one, plus kind of being on your own to a large extent and having that level of responsibility and figuring that out academically and socially otherwise. And again, it can ideally move the needle for an athlete who wants to elevate his or her level of recruiting. If they want to try to go from D2 or D3 to low D1 or above.

Or as I mentioned elevate their academic profile so that they can be recruited by a more selective school You know there will be schools like they do at the ivy level and you know places like Stanford who sort of In some ways stash a kid in a prep school to improve their academics. So Yeah, and I'm all for it. I'd to mention you and I only played four years, so

Like I think a fifth year is a little bit kind of spoiled, but again, you you could use that fifth year to get a master's. the PG kids kind of are losing out on that part, but they still have an opportunity to have a great college experience. think the PG year makes a lot of sense in those situations, kind of move the needle situations that I mentioned.

Cory Heitz (24:13)
Yeah, I mean, I've got a client last year that, you know, six, seven player from the Northwest, good grades and one low major offer. He didn't like, did a post-grad year. ended up with a mid-major offer that he took with NIL money. So for tweeners that in the old days would have been, you know, obviously D1 from the get-go, you can now raise your stock during a post-grad year and potentially get more NIL money. like

Would you get that if you went to Juca? Would you get that if you went to D3 or D2 route and try to transfer up? I don't know. So there's no right answer, but it's just the key is letting families know all these options and then them making the best choice for their specific situation. So it's, that has not changed.

George White (24:56)
Yeah, I mean, you are going to get parents and athletes that look at it. Well, I'll take this D3 offer and I'll try to leverage that into transferring up one time. I'm not sure how realistic that is versus a PG yoga college experience and progress towards a degree. So, but I think in a lot of cases, just knowing the landscape, parents tend not to think that way. Like if they were a client of mine, I'd be...

having a conversation with them, but most unfortunately don't realize all the ramifications of all these of this landscape and these issues and these new rules and intended and unintended consequences and really what your true alternatives are and how they stack up against each other. you know, it's it's going to have some impact, but I think what's going to happen

in the prep school world is they're going to be more aggressive recruiting not just PG's but trying to backfill that because they have to get tuition income. They're going to backfill that with recruiting underclass high school athletes and getting them to reclassify. So they will be able to compete at a national level with older players by the time these players have risen up.

you know, to that fifth year in prep school level. But yeah, so it's an interesting landscape. I don't think it's gonna have a huge impact on athletes attending prep school. They just might do it earlier because the coaches at prep schools are gonna be more aggressive recruiting those underclass kids out of high schools.

Cory Heitz (26:50)
Absolutely. Is there anything else we didn't touch on you want to mention before we get out of here?

George White (26:55)
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it's important that parents understand that this is an overall positive if you have a high school athlete. But again, you have to understand the nuances about it. And I think parents need to, unfortunately, just because of the professionalization of youth sports, think about how they approach that reclass and grade school, which I'm not in favor of. I would...

advise a parent not to reclass a kid in eighth grade to repeat their eighth grade year, although that's going to be happening. I think it's better to wait and see if they're a college athlete and if you're to use that. You don't have to use that year as a PG or for maturity. I it makes more sense to do that because you have more certainty at that point in time. know, eighth grade is very early to determine development and whether the kid's going to grow and still like their sport, still want to play all that stuff. So.

That's really the group of sort of the audience that I'm most concerned about. Unfortunately, I'm not sure they're getting this message because I don't think they're looking that far ahead these days.

Cory Heitz (28:10)
Right. All right. Well, George, thanks for joining us in this emergency podcast. Explain this

proposal. Last thing, when do they actually vote on this? And could there be changes between now and when they actually vote?

George White (28:27)
They're trying to implement this, you know, within this next, within this next coming year. So it would be in effect for the 26, 27 group of athletes, both high school and college. There has been committee meetings. I think they're trying to get a vote in by the next two months. Whether it happens, I don't know, as you know, and so.

doesn't always move at the greatest level of speed, more glacial, and by a committee who has another committee to make this. So anyway, I'm hoping they can push it through. mean, from what they're, the message that I'm kind of getting between the lines and kind of through my contacts is they want to get this in place before the fall of this year so they can commence it with this 26-27.

group of athletes both college and high school.

Cory Heitz (29:30)
Okay. Okay.

Well, George, thanks for coming on the day, George White to recruit you filling us in on the latest and, we will keep you posted on this as we learn some more. And thanks so much for tuning in to prep athletics podcast. George, thanks for joining me and we will always keep you posted on the latest we hear. All right.

George White (29:34)
like that.

Okay, Corey.

Alright, great. Thanks for opportunity. Talk to you soon.

Cory Heitz (29:48)
All

right, thanks. See you guys next time. Take care.