Micah Parsons considering Penn State return after initially opting out

Micah Parsons may want to suit up for Penn State football this fall.

Penn State football may be getting its best player back in Micah Parsons after all.

With Big Ten football back on track for a late October start, many top players in the Power 5 conference who opted out now may want to opt back in. This week, we’ve seen a pair of Ohio State Buckeye standouts in guard Wyatt Davis and cornerback Shaun Wade return to the program. What are the chances Parsons does the same for the Penn State Nittany Lions?

Any Big Ten player who opted out should be allowed to come back and play.

Parsons was the best player on the 2020 Nittany Lions team. He was the runaway favorite to bring back the Dick Butkus Award to Happy Valley. If not for the Buckeyes, the Nittany Lions would be the favorite to win the Big Ten and reach the College Football Playoff for the first time in school history. However, he did sign with an agent this summer, so that only further complicates things.

The same sort of predicament exists for Minnesota Golden Gophers wide receiver Rashod Bateman, who would have been a serious contender for the Fred Biletnikoff Award had he not initially opted out. Though Purdue Boilermakers wide receiver/return specialist Rondale Moore also opted out, he hasn’t signed with an agent, so he could return to West Lafayette no problem.

Bateman, Davis, Moore, Parsons and Wade are among the five best players in the Big Ten. The league is better if they are playing on fall Saturdays. These are bona fide first-round talents, whose brands will only grow if they play this fall up in Big Ten country. While Davis, Moore and Wade can do whatever they want, it may not be entirely up to Bateman and Parsons.

2020 is the weirdest year of our lives. This season already won’t count towards any player’s eligibility. Transfer waivers have been granted immediately eligibility left and right. So if a player’s conference wasn’t going to play but now is, he should be allowed to come back and compete for his alma mater, regardless of if he signed with an agent or not. This isn’t that hard, y’all.

Frankly, we could see the same thing with players out of the Pac-12, particularly with some of the stars players of the Oregon Ducks. Like Parsons and the Ohio State duo, the Ducks can contend for a College Football Playoff spot. Bateman’s Gophers can contend for a Big Ten West title and Moore’s Boilermakers can contend for a winning season in the Big Ten.

At this juncture, the only conferences that shouldn’t allow players to opt back in are the five FBS conferences that have already played games this season (ACC, AAC, Big 12, Conference USA, Sun Belt). Heck, if Ja’Marr Chase of the LSU Tigers or Jamie Newman of the Georgia Bulldogs wanted to rejoin their programs before Sept. 26, it wouldn’t be the strangest thing in the world to happen.

Let’s be real. The simplest thing the NCAA can do is to allow players like Bateman and Parsons who want back in after signing with an agent to get back in. It’s not their fault their conference’s university presidents initially quit on them. This whole thing is unprecedented, so why shouldn’t we make exceptions for exceptional college football players like Bateman and Parsons?

Right now, the major players of note who shouldn’t be able to opt back in are Kennedy Brooks (Oklahoma Sooners), Gregory Rousseau (Miami Hurricanes) and Sage Surratt (Wake Forest Demon Deacons). Their teams have already played games this season without them. If Caleb Farley (Virginia Tech Hokies) wants back in, he should be allowed to listen to “Enter Sandman.”

Parsons football will make college football better if he is allowed to play for Penn State this fall.

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