FORT WORTH -- Shortly before the start of the NCAA basketball tournament, TCU guard Charles O' Bannon will turn 25.
He is the sixth-oldest player in men's Division I basketball.
TCU punter Jordy Sandy played the 2023 season at the age of 30.
Then there is University of Virginia kicker Matt Ganyard, who played last season at 34.
University of Miami tight end Cam McCormick plans to play in the 2024 season, in what will be his ninth season of college football. He's 25.
There are extenuating circumstances behind all of these stories, but some of this is ridiculous.
Much of major college sports has morphed into a lawless mess, but at its core it's supposed to be college students playing sports against fellow college students.
Not a load of 23- and 24-year-old grad students playing against 18- and 19-year-old freshmen and sophomores. This is the semi-equivalent of a high school senior playing against an eighth-grader.
Two days before the national title game in Houston earlier this year, University of Washington senior linebacker Edefuan Ulofoshio said the age situation is such that he was being invited to his coaches' staff meetings.
Ulofoshio's first season of college football was 2018. He recently turned 24, and this was his sixth year of college ball.
"It's give and take; you do get your degree and you can work on your master's degree," Ulofoshio said. "From a football perspective, you are older. You are bigger. You are more mature. You can be a better leader."
No one can knock the kid, like Ulofoshio, who takes advantage of the opportunity. A former walk-on, he earned his undergraduate degree in public and global health, and he is on a pre-med track.
The NCAA has a rules for everything from the major to the trivial, but it has no age limit.
With some exceptions, the young person must enroll in college no later than 12 months after graduating from high school, and then has four years of eligibility.
A player may red shirt. There could be a medical red shirt. They may have transferred to another place and sat out a year. Or two.
Former Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett was a walk-on in 2017 but never saw the field. He left Georgia to play at a junior college, and then returned to Athens where he led UGA to the national title in 2021 and '22.
After six years of college, and at the age of 25, he reportedly did not graduate. If a person spends six years in college they could realistically earn both a under graduate and graduate degree.
Then there are the instances when the player may have pursued other interests, like professional baseball, before enrolling.
Chris Weinke played six years of minor league baseball before attending college, where he was a star quarterback at Florida State. In 1999, he led FSU to the national championship and became the oldest player to win the Heisman Trophy when he was 28.
In 1999, he stood out. In 2024, he blends in.
The NCAA offers graduate transfers, which allows a student to play a fifth year. The athlete must earn their degree and then is eligible for a fifth season elsewhere.
NIL money is extra incentive for a player to stick around for another year or two. Most of them know they're not going to get paid to play sports when their college career is over, so why not stay and earn a degree while playing and getting paid, too?
Or, just stay, "attend" class, get paid, have fun and play a few games.
Every college coach who was around in the covid year of 2020 knew some of this was coming. Because it didn't want to lose yet another court case, the NCAA simply granted any student athlete who was eligible in 2020 an extra year of eligibility.
"We will be slowly weaning off of that time element each and every year," Coach Kalen DeBoer said two days before his Washington Huskies, led by 23-year-old quarterback Michael Penix, played Michigan for the national title. DeBoer has since become the head coach at Alabama.
"I don't think this something is going to have a major impact. I think it's helped us. You can look at it two ways, their bodies are getting older. These guys might be more in their prime physically."
The other way to look at it is the way University of Arkansas baseball coach Dave Van Horn sees it.
"It's like NIL or anything else; it's what we have to deal with," Van Horn said on a conference call this week to preview the Shriner's Children's college showdown tournament beginning next Friday at Globe Life Field.
"I do like coaching older kids. The issue every coach has is if you have an 18- or 19-year-old who is trying to beat out the 22-year-old, or is deciding not to come to your university because of that situation.
"It is more under control now; we're not having the roster problems like we did two or three years ago."
Much of college sports today barely resembles the norms from 20 years ago. Nothing is going to stop it, but some of it is getting a tad ridiculous.
Like watching a seventh-year grad student who is throwing passes to an 18-year-old freshman.