Noah Vedral’s eligibility at Nebraska was reportedly hampered by UCF foot dragging

If you were wondering what took so long to get Noah Vedral eligible at Nebraska, it turns out it was his old school not being very good sports.

Imagine if Noah Vedral had been under center for the Nebraska football team against Troy. It could have happened if a certain school had gotten it’s act together. Or stopped being haters.

That’s the report [paywall] coming out of the Omaha World-Herald earlier this week. According to the newspaper, the reason it took so long for Vedral to become “immediately eligible” this season is that UCF didn’t respond to the NCAA as the organization was doing its due diligence.

The response is required from the school a player is transferring from but apparently said school is allowed to drag their feet for nearly as long as they feel like it. Keep in mind Vedral just became eligible to play for the Huskers in 2018 last Friday.

That’s many, many moons after the former UCF backup quarterback transferred to Lincoln. It had been so long since he made the request to become eligible this season that everyone just assumed it wasn’t going to happen.

When he was granted the waiver, the same kind of waiver Breon Dixon received from Ole Miss, people were naturally curious why it had taken so long? The first thought was someone at Nebraska had dropped the ball and forgotten to dot an “I” or cross a “T.”

If the World Herald‘s sources are correct, it had nothing to do with the Cornhuskers. If the reports are true, it certainly makes more sense why head coach Scott Frost didn’t really want to talk about it.

I assumed it was because he was avoiding throwing someone from the administration under the bus, which was admirable. Turns out he was avoiding starting a war of words with his old school. Also admirable but also, maybe UCF deserves some choice comments thrown their way.

Vedral starting the Troy game doesn’t guarantee a win. But considering he’s had extensive action in a college football game, and knows Frost’s offense forward and backward, it certainly seems like the Huskers would have had a better chance to win than they did with a walk-on quarterback in the first real action of his career and only a second game into the Frost era.

This isn’t necessarily about the difference between 0-6 and 1-5 either. Most Nebraska football fans believe (rightly in my opinion) that once the Huskers get a win under their belt, it could start a kind of domino effect. Do we at least have the confidence and experiences to beat Northwestern last week? Probably. And 2-4 is quite a bit different than 0-6 when it comes to getting Bowl eligible.

UCF did some real damage to the Nebraska football program because they were grumpy the Huskers hired their head coach. That’s even weirder when you consider where the two programs are these days.