Joel Klatt on Tyler Brown's eligibility appeal: 'The NCAA is awful at their job'

The NCAA has drawn major scrutiny over its decisions on immediate eligibility waivers for a handful of players this offseason, from Tez Walker at North Carolina, to Darrell Jackson at Florida State, to Tyler Brown at Colorado.

The latter has been the source of outrage, even, given the circumstances surrounding Brown’s appeal for a waiver.

“Who denied that? What suit stuffed in cubicle 87B denied that waiver?” said FOX analyst Joel Klatt. “Because that’s what this reeks of: a robotic bureaucracy that doesn’t care about the humans in the situation. That can’t look at a situation in totality and can only look at a situation through black and white colored glasses and the letter of the law. The letter of the law should not apply in a waiver case.”

Here are the pertinent details surrounding the Tyler Brown waiver case, explained by Klatt.

“Tyler Brown was denied his immediate eligibility for his second transfer despite citing mental health reasons for his transfer,” Klatt said. “Now you can say, ‘Joel, everyone uses mental health. Anyone could use mental health.’ OK. Tyler began his career at Louisiana-Lafayette. They had a coach named DJ Looney who Tyler was very close to. In fact, as Tyler put it, had become very much a father figure to him when he didn’t have many father figures in his life prior. DJ Looney died in front of Tyler on the field tragically of a heart attack. Tyler could barely go on. Didn’t know how to function.

“How would you feel if your father figure died in front of you of a heart attack? Maybe for some of you that figure has. Can you imagine the heartache and the pain? Would you want to go to class? Would you want to play football? So he transferred. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t be there anymore, it reminded him too much of that tragedy. So he transfers to Jackson State.”

After arriving at Jackson State, Brown began to settle in and get comfortable. He played in 11 games, using football as an outlet.

Then his coach, Deion Sanders, parted ways with the program to take the head coaching job at Colorado.

“Luckily for him he found a coaching staff, led by coach Prime, that welcomed him with open arms at Jackson State,” Klatt said. “So there Tyler is and he finds another coaching staff that he’s like, ‘Man, again, I’ve found this father figure type of environment’ and an environment in which they did not look down on him for opening up about the struggles he faced after he watched DJ Looney die in front of him of a heart attack and how hard it was for him just to go back to playing football.

“Then he suffers an injury. When he was away from football his mental health struggles increase because now he no longer has that outlet to work through some of these issues. He gets healthy, he gets back, his coach, coach Prime, gets an opportunity to go to Colorado. He tries to follow him to Colorado and the NCAA denies his waiver.”

Needless to say, Klatt was not a fan of the NCAA’s decision on Tyler Brown.