Zxavian Harris is playing football in Louisiana this season but not for the New Orleans Saints. The former undrafted free agent is going back to college to play for the LSU Tigers. Kellen Moore expressed the same sentiment on the move as fans around the country.
"It’s a unique college football world we live in right now." Moore said. He added "I think it’s unfortunate that there’s no regulation to anything right now." This is a big story in football right now, and Moore believes, “there’s a challenging balancing act to this, and hopefully there can be some leadership and some regulations developed here shortly,
Harris was on the NFI list his entire time in New Orleans and never took a practice snap. Maybe they'll see him an hour up the road in Baton Rouge this year... Maybe.
Players may be hurt in the long term
The decision to go back to college does seem to challenge the tradition of the game. Once you’re a pro, going back to college hasn’t been an option. We’ve seen fans joke about NBA players going back to college to play a different sport, but those are jokes and also the change in sport adds a fantasy dimension to the conversation.
Players like Harris are going back to college to play the same sport. Truthfully, it’s not egregious that they’re playing in college for a couple of reasons. The thing that makes it stand out, however, could have lingering effects on those players.
Harris is among the class of 2022 high school athletes being given a fifth year of eligibility. The timing, though, meant that all of those players who exhausted their original four year limit had already moved on professionally. There are countless players from the same high school class that had a redshirt season and are still in school.
Noting that this isn’t an old player going back to school does feel important when discussing integrity. These are athletes that very well could still be in college, because we see 5th year seniors on the collegiate field every week.
From a player perspective, it’s not difficult to see why Harris or anyone else would do this. Their stock was low in the pros, so they go to see if they can bolster it with one more year of actually playing.
There’s a good chance that won’t be the case, however. No matter how it’s rationalized, this will be viewed unfavorably by many NFL teams. Moore’s words of confusion are sentiments felt by many.
These were already undrafted free agents, so no one is going to bat an eye when it happens again.
Collegiate conferences are taking a stand against players returning to college as well. There’s a stigma of running away from the work that could stay on these players the next time they try to make it to the NFL again. On top of that, colleges may not even give them a chance to rebuild their stock.
For some players, it’s a chance necessary to take. For Harris, he seemed to be a player who could’ve built himself up without going this route. Hopefully, the lingering effects are just hypothetical.
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