In my current NCAA league, I have left off the ability for underclassmen to declare. I enjoy seeing the student athletes grow, develop, and accumulate history/stats with their school. However, I am considering starting a new league with the ability for underclassmen to declare. Does anyone play with this option left on and, if so, how do they find it? Does it have much of an impact? Historically, could underclassmen always declare?

Thanks!

I've always played allowing underclassmen to declare. With the low prestige schools I now almost always take on, it makes no difference since none of the players are good enough to declare early. When I used to play at higher prestige programs, sometimes I would lose a player or two and would have to go after transfer players or leave a scholarship unfilled for a year, but I still had plenty of good players to maintain a strong team. And many teams within the 'power' conferences will have players declaring early, so everyone within a given conference is on pretty equal footing.

Being able to declare early dates back to the early 1970's (google "Spencer Haywood").