The Cover 3 podcast, a rather well-known podcast covering college football, has floated a scenario that could cause a mind-blowing result for Texas A&M— and the sport in general. Apparently, Shemar Stewart has been back in College Station practicing with the team during his contract holdout situation with the Cincinnati Bengals, and it was mentioned to Bud Elliott, one of the podcast hosts, that Stewart could be back in Maroon and White this season.
That would shatter nigh every precedent having to do with college football players going to the NFL draft if it were to take place, and the ripple effects would be almost too much to picture at this point. But the craziest thing is that this notion, in fact, is not crazy at all.
Texas A&M could unthinkably return Shemar Stewart to College Station this fall in bombshell scenario
As Elliott mentions, this is a scenario that happens with some regularity in NCAA baseball: if a player declares for the draft but doesn't like where he's chosen, he can elect to return to school. However, in football, the rule has always been that the hiring of an agent foregoes your remaining eligibility and precludes you from returning to school— while Stewart has not signed his hotly-contested contract, he did hire an agent when he declared.
The issue is that high school players, at this point, have agents that work with them to get contracts in this age of NIL. It seems like a glaring incongruency that this would be permissible, but Stewart's hiring of an agent would not be.
Similarly, it seems entirely incongruent that NCAA baseball players could elect to return to school after being drafted and NCAA football players could not. This is already stacking up to be a favorable case for Stewart— but it would in all likelihood have to be a case.
Stewart would have to bring this before a court in order to not invalidate any game in which he played for A&M due to illegal participation. Of course, the NCAA has an extremely poor record in court right now, but nothing is guaranteed.
As Danny Kannell points out, though, it's the NFL who may pose the bigger issue. If the league doesn't like what Stewart returning to campus would mean for their draft process moving forward, then they could put up some roadblocks for this process as well.
Then you have the roster management angle for A&M. They could use another body at defensive end, of course, but would this mean they strip a scholarship from another player? What about the "salary cap" that has been put in place now thanks to the revenue sharing agreement— how does a Stewart return affect that?
At the end of the day, this could be nothing. Maybe it's just Shemar staying in shape while sitting out Bengals practices. However, this could also be earth-shattering if the Cover 3 guys are right— and a huge boon for this Aggie defense.