U Sports to allow 25-year-olds to play 2021 football season

U Sports has decided to make an exemption to its age cap policy and allow 25-year-olds to play in 2021.

The original decision made on July 9 was met with a lot of criticism and backlash. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to the cancellation of the 2020 Canada West football season, meaning some players would have lost out on their final year of eligibility.

U Sports announced it is making a one-time exemption to the rule.

It will also conduct a review on the policy with a decision date set for February 2021.

Six members of the University of Regina Rams and five players from the University of Saskatchewan Huskies would have been affected by the rule.

U of R linebacker Robbie Lowes would have lost out on his final year of eligibility due to the rule. He found out about the exemption earlier in the afternoon.

“I’m ecstatic right now, this has been one of the better days of the year and right now it’s all smiles,” Lowes said.

Lowes said he called Rams head coach Mark McConkey to make sure it was real.

“It means everything to me (to be able to play). I get to represent my city, my school, my family and just all the goals we set out to accomplish in 2020 as a team and all the work that we’ve been putting in, we get a chance to do that and it’s not lost,” Lowes said.

He said it’s been a roller coaster throughout the month, with highs and lows with every piece of news that came out.

“I just tried to stay focused and block out the noise and I was going to wait and hear something official,” Lowes said.

Lowes feels like the pressure from the public and football world played a role in getting the exemption.

“If there wasn’t any push back, why would they change their original ruling? It seemed like there was a large amount of people that were upset by this ruling,” Lowes said.

While Lowes is happy to hear U Sports is going to review the policy. He does believe there should be some sort of age cap in place for football.

“You can’t have 30 year olds playing against 18 year olds,” Lowes said.