Virginia Tech open to adding former NFL players

College football programs and NFL teams are scrambling in August as recent court rulings have created uncertainty over the eligibility of some Class of 2022 athletes.

Some of those athletes signed with NFL teams this offseason and have participated in training camp. In a bizarre twist, a few NFL athletes would prefer to be released before the Aug. 30 deadline to trim league rosters to 53 players so they can sign with a college team this fall instead of joining a practice squad in the NFL.

SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee and Oregon head coach Dan Lanning have been outspoken about their concerns with recent rulings allowing players to return to college football.

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First-year Virginia Tech head coach James Franklin is willing to embrace players from the class of 2022 looking for a new school. He believes it’s in the best interest of the Hokies to find talent wherever they can.

“It has to be an option,” Franklin said, via a transcription from On3. “If you want to compete in major college football, you can’t say that we’re not going to do things that give us a chance to be highly competitive when other schools are.

“Like, these are the things to me, when you say you want to compete at the very highest level, you can’t say, ‘Okay, we’re going to compete in these three things and not the other things.’ And everybody’s got to be bought into that.”

Franklin said schools have made changes to their academic calendars to help facilitate new athletes coming in late.

“And there’s challenges,” Franklin said. “That’s where some of the schools that are on the quarter system that don’t start school until Week 4 of the season, they’ve got some advantages from that standpoint. … A lot of schools have literally started carrying extra courses that don’t start until the midpoint of the semester for this very reason.”

Franklin isn’t the only ACC coach willing to look for outside help. North Carolina head coach Bill Belichick is looking to players coming from the NFL.

For Virginia Tech and UNC, the elite talent coming from the league could boost their programs this fall. It’s in their school’s best interest to take advantage of any loophole that comes their way.

For more on the NCAA, head to Newsweek Sports.