Take heart, SEC defensive coordinators. When Texas A&M offensive tackle Cedric Ogbuehi spends his Saturday driving your defensive line into the dirt, he'll have done so thanks to a $50,000 payment from the Aggies' athletics department - with the NCAA's blessing.
Fox Sports had an interesting story in which the Aggies brass utilized the NCAA's Student Assistance Fund to front the money necessary to secure loss-of-value insurance for the Aggies' senior left tackle. After receiving a first-round grade, Ogbuehi considered turning pro until head coach Kevin Sumlin, offensive line coach B.J. Anderson, associate AD for football Justin Moore and DFO Gary Reynolds presented the Ogbuehi family with their plan to use the Student Assistance Fund to obtain Ogbuehi's loss-of-value insurance, which the family could not have afforded on its own, Cedric says, and thus allow him to return to school.
Many insurance companies offer policies such as these and then collect the money after a player signs his first professional contract. The article does not delve into the specifics of Ogbuehi's policy, but it appears the Aggies went a different route. The Student Assistance Fund is a little-known corner of the NCAA rulebook that allows universities to cover things ranging from loss-of-value insurance to suits for official functions like conference media days. The money fluctuates from year to year, and Fox says A&M exhausted much of its fund to obtain the policy.
"I don't think many schools know about it," Moore said Tuesday. "It's a game-changer."