Tennessee receiver Bru McCoy began his last practice just as he began every single other practice in preseason camp. He’ll have no idea when all the hard work will pay off.

That’s ridiculous. That’s the NCAA.

First, I completely understand that McCoy, who has technically transferred three times since signing with the Trojans in 2019, is a unique case. That doesn’t mean that the NCAA isn’t uniquely inept in these sorts of appeals.

The fluid transfer portal of 2022 is nothing new for coaches that would love to know what players that they could actually put into the game each season. The transfer portal is new, but coaches have been waiting on delayed NCAA rulings in preseason camp for decades.

Coaches used to have to wait until the NCAA made rulings on other issues, such as academic eligibility, with the same frustration that Tennessee coach Josh Heupel is feeling.

Put yourself in Heupel’s place. He has an incredibly talented receiver that can take Tennessee’s offense to another level or, at least, make sure that there’s not a falloff in Heupel’s second season at UT.

McCoy is just what Tennessee needs. He has college experience and the Vols just lost a talented receiver to the NFL: Velus Jones Jr. Even without McCoy, Tennessee is already pretty stacked on offense in case you haven’t been keeping tabs throughout the first half of preseason camp.

The Vols have Hendon Hooker, a talented quarterback with tremendous upside, Cedric Tillman, a receiver that is as talented as anyone in the SEC, Jabari Small, an emerging running back, and four starters returning on the offensive line. If you’re putting together a perfect SEC offense, the Vols are close. A receiver to complement Tillman would be nice. Any sort of decision would be sublime.

If McCoy isn’t available, the Vols will likely turn to Walker Merrill. No offense against Merrill or any other Tennessee receiver, but they’re not as talented as McCoy, who was rated as one of the top receiver prospects in the nation in 2019.

I feel certain that McCoy and Tennessee aren’t the only athlete/school duo caught in the middle of NCAA purgatory. This isn’t a McCoy or Tennessee issue. This is a clear-cut NCAA issue. Pure and simple, the governing body struggles to govern itself, much less its member institutions.

The NCAA recently asked member institutions to be proactive about turning each other in for various violations. The NCAA, which had significant layoffs earlier this year, needs help enforcing its own rules. That’s shameful.

It’s also shameful that McCoy is still in eligibility limbo. There has been speculation that Southern California may be trying to gum up the works in hopes of slowing down the NCAA. That’s not the Trojans fault. Sure, it may sound a bit warped to keep a young man from continuing his playing career, but don’t blame the Trojans’ administration.

Even if Southern California is trying to slow the McCoy process, that doesn’t matter. It’s up to the NCAA to get USC – or any program – moving at a respectable pace. Perhaps the NCAA already has all they need from USC. Perhaps the NCAA is just inept. That’s no great declaration.

I’m not here to tell anyone that McCoy should be deemed eligible immediately, that he and USC have done everything they could in a timely fashion to be able to play this season. I’ll let someone else take that stance. Mine is more about timeliness.

There is absolutely no reason that a pending NCAA resolution couldn’t have been taken care of weeks ago. It seems pretty simple. First, assemble all of the needed information for the appeal, which surely has been done by this point. Second, get the aforementioned information to the NCAA. Again, this is not hard.

Lastly, the NCAA has to make a ruling.

It’s the latter that is so befuddling. How long does it take to determine if McCoy is available in the season opener? Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said there is no timetable in place. That’s not a surprise. 

Long an inept organization, the NCAA’s lack of a clear-cut, timely decision in this matter is absolutely shameful. Coaches are used to the NCAA being a bastion of inefficiency. Maybe it is a better idea just to be done with the NCAA all together and create a super conference that it can’t govern? The NCAA doesn’t really do much as it stands, especially in football.

The NCAA is a dinosaur that should have gone extinct years ago. The McCoy case is just a brutal reminder that the NCAA is more about itself than the players it was designed to protect. 

College football would be better off chucking the NCAA, starting anew and creating a governing body that isn’t a bumbling, antiquated notion of what it was originally supposed to be. All of that will take time, meaning it won’t help McCoy. Again, that’s a shame, because the clock is running out on McCoy while no one seems to care.