How to be a college football star without going to class

The stereotype of the academically challenged athlete who gets away with skipping class is so overused it's almost expected.

That's why when a college football player recently revealed he was working at a golf course and not going to class, it seemed almost too ridiculous to be real.

'Nine Houston student-athletes entered the season having already earned an undergraduate degree.'

This isn't a trope, however. It's a real-life scenario.

South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers has no school this semester, unless he counts preparing for football games.

Sellers instead goes to a local golf course, where he is practicing "facility management" by "cutting grass and picking up balls," Fox News reported.

Another example is recent NFL Draft pick Carson Beck from the University of Miami, who had six years of NCAA eligibility due to COVID-19, but he was blasted online back in January for saying he had "no class" and had actually graduated two years earlier.

As easy as it is to believe that colleges are giving students who can barely read a passing grade — like Hank of "King of the Hill" — the class-less college football star of today is more likely to be an athlete who previously put in the work, at least in the more popularized stories.

Sellers is living lavishly on the greens because that is the final internship work he needs to graduate with a degree in sports and entertainment in December. Beck had "no class" in the lead-up to the National Championship game in January because he graduated from Georgia in 2024 and then transferred to Miami as a graduate student.

In fact, college teams having a sizable chunk of their roster earning their degrees ahead of time is nothing new.

In 2017, the University of Houston had nine.

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David Jensen/Getty Images

"Nine Houston student-athletes entered the season having already earned an undergraduate degree," a 2017 Hawaii Bowl guide touted. And Houston ranked only No. 17 nationally that year in terms of players having earned degrees prior to the start of the season.

For 2025, the leading schools, Northwestern and Virginia, both had 34 players enter the season having already earned their degrees. Tennessee Tech had 32.

This is part of a growing trend that has nearly quadrupled in volume since 2017, according to the National Football Foundation. The same year, Houston had what appeared to be shocking numbers; 971 students from 213 schools were playing college football after having graduated.

That number exploded to 3,695 students in 304 schools in 2025.

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Still, the precedent was set decades ago.

Mississippi State's Justin Senior won an award for Mississippi's most outstanding collegiate offensive lineman in 2016 after earning his degree ahead of time.

Going back to 2007, ASU's Zach Krula earned his degree before his senior year, while in 2003 Georgia Tech punter Hal Higgins was noted for having earned his degree ahead of time after battling Hodgkin’s disease. He then pursued an MBA while still playing college football.

This all means that the next time a story comes around about an athlete who isn't going to class, it is more likely a circumstance that is not just condoned by the school, but rather championed and promoted.

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