Dan Lanning says NFL rookies returning to college 'unfair to sport

The college football world has been turned on its head too many times to count over the past half decade, but this month's latest development surrounding NFL rookies potentially returning to college is a line that had not been crossed in the sport until August.

Oregon football coach Dan Lanning previously said the Ducks wouldn't be looking to add players back to their roster after the "5-for-5" ruling passed in early August, allowing athletes from the 2022 to return to school for a fifth year of eligibility.

With two weeks left until Oregon begins its season, a Louisiana state court ruling allowed players that had participated in NFL minicamps this summer and other undrafted rookies to return to school, opening the floodgates as rosters continue to turnover in late August.

Lanning spoke at length following the Ducks' Aug. 22 scrimmage about the ruling and called it "unfair to the sport."

"I think there’s a lot of negatives that are involved around it," Lanning said. "One, once you go to the NFL, to me, you’re in the NFL. You don’t get the opportunity to come back. Two, most of us have built our rosters, and you have a limited roster limit now. So if you invited somebody back to your team, that means you’re kicking somebody else off your team to match your roster limits. I don’t think that’s fair to the players that worked all summer, all spring, and put themselves in position to be ready to work for a team to have somebody come back."

Oregon's fifth-year coach further elaborated that in the past, if players signed with agents, or went to the NFL Scouting Combine, or participated in minicamp, their eligibility was exhausted.

"All those things qualified as you were no longer an amateur, you’re a professional now," Lanning said. "So to let any of those players come back, fair or unfair to them, it’s unfair to the sport and I think it’s unfair to the players that are on current teams for those guys to be coming back."

To this point, Oregon has yet to add a class of 2022 recruit back to its roster, and Lanning has said before he has little interest in doing so.

Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football and women’s basketball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at  [email protected] .

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