The NCAA is pushing hard to reform some legislation and redefine the concept of the athletic scholarship — which really hasn’t been redefined in decades — and WVU is ready to march in step.

First was, and still is, a rule granting student-athletes on scholarship an additional $2,000 stipend. Passed in October, that idea was suspended in December when the NCAA realized a vote to override it would pass. Nevertheless, the Mountaineers are preparing to grant the stipend, not necessarily because they see it as as inevitability, but because they see it as a necessity.

“It clearly will have a financial impact, but to be honest, it’s in the best interest of the student-athlete, in particular as we find a lot of kids are coming here from farther and farther away now,” he said.

“Look at our football roster and our basketball roster. A lot has changed in 30 years since I was a student-athlete here.

“Maybe one or two people had to fly to Pittsburgh to join the football team for practice. Everyone had a pretty easy drive. That’s changed.

“We’ve got a lot of kids from Florida and we’re getting more and more from Texas. Flying around like they have to is not inexpensive and I think we can help with that.”

But that’s just one part of the package. In October the NCAA also passed a rule to allow schools to grant multi-year scholarships. There were prompt criticisms and objections, but the vote to override fell just two votes short in February. It’s here now and schools are using it, including virtually all of the Big Ten for the most recent football recruiting class.

The WVU coaches have been told they can offer a four-year scholarship in any sport, this despite being one of the schools to vote to support overriding the four-year rule.

Luck said the Mountaineers will go with the plan now and that schools risk a competitive disadvantage if they do not.

“The TCU AD (Chris Del Conte) was telling a story about two Olympic sport athletes from separate sports and both had four-year scholarship offers from SEC schools,” Luck said. “The fact of the matter is other schools out there are doing it now.

“We’ve said it’s permissible and we can do it if we want. We’ll see what the NCAA continues to do legislation-wise because we want to make sure we have the weapon in our arsenal.”

It’s a pretty compelling topic involving big schools and small schools, little engines that could and monstrous machines that do, expansive budgets and tight ones, so on and so forth. And yet there’s a somewhat uncovered aspect at the prospect’s level, where they have to field and filter all the variables.

For insight, we yield the floor to Chris Anderson, who tirelessly covers WVU recruiting for Eersports.com and the 247sports.com Network. Seriously, the man’s on vacation this week and he submitted this dispatch …

The West Virginia coaches may say publicly that they are unconcerned with the rule change and they don’t see much difference between the one-year renewable scholarship and a four-year pledge, but on the recruiting trail it will make all the difference in the world. Although others have beat WVU to the punch, making the switch allows the Mountaineers to avoid the “negative recruiting” that is so often found in the cutthroat world of courting the nation’s top prospects.

Just this past season, two coaches from different programs – we will call them “State” and “Tech” – were watching the same high school senior play. NCAA rules mandate that they can not speak with the player unless they “bump” into them. The coach from State just happened to “bump” into the recruit before leaving, while the “Tech” coach did not. When the player wondered aloud why the Tech coach did not speak with him, the State coach responded with “I guess they just don’t want you as bad as we do.”

Two weeks later, the highly regarded prospect gave a verbal commitment to “State” and eventually signed with them.

If coaches will use a simple “hello” after a high school game against other programs, imagine what they would do when it came to three extra years of free education and housing.

As far as how recruits are receiving the news, a quick survey of over a dozen prospects on West Virginia’s board showed nothing but positive news. “Awesome,” “perfect” and “great” were all littered throughout the responses to the switch to the four-year scholarship.

One thing the prospects realize – and undoubtedly the coaches and universities do as well – is that these scholarships just became an even more precious commodity.

“That means they’re only going to offer guys that they really need,” said Colby Grant, a shifty scat back from Susquehanna Township (PA) who is pushing for a Mountaineer offer.

Khyre Drayer, a linebacker/fullback prospect McDowell (PA) HS, shared the same sentiment.

“They invited me to their camp so I can earn an offer,” he said. “Definitely means a lot more now.”