I hope you are right, JS. Any indications that this might be the case? Incidentally, don;t ever underestimate the thickheadednes of Kansans. Having grown up there and kept in touch, I know whereof I speak.
There is no head so thick it can't see this is a debacle.
Well, maybe I better not generalize without having seen all of them play. But they're blundering their way through a growing firestorm and have to find a way out.
They claim to be bound by policies they wrote themselves, as though those policies were an immutable constitution. Bull. Even constitutional rulings can be reconsidered, and constitutions changed.
Speaking of constitutions, in addition to everything else that's been said, I'm thinking they're implicitly under threat of a lawsuit that they won't want to see to a conclusion (bleeding the whole while) but will want to settle before it even starts by agreeing to a mutually acceptable transfer.
Among other things, they're a state school. If I'm her lawyer I'm starting to think about a constitutional (fed and/or state) due process argument.
They're an arm of the state and have administered their rules to an individual's detriment in a way that, based on virtually all reported facts, appears to have been unreasonable, inconsistent, opaque and arbitrary (to say nothing of accident prone).
Turning from the courts to the NCAA, which doesn't seem supportive of K-State's actions, there's a place for the NCAA permissible restrictions on transfers. The policy behind them is to avoid athletes opportunistically hopping around among programs seeking the best situations of the moment, while interrupting the presumed four-year educational path followed by other students.
The NCAA has always recognized coaching changes as a circumstance outside the athlete's control that can make her original choice a sort of shell game and that merit more lenient transfer rules.
That's the case here, and the notorious "stolen" letter makes clear that the AD was satisfied Ms. Romero wasn't being tampered with, i.e. lured by the former coaching staff to wherever they were going.
You add all this up, and conclude that it's going to dawn on even the thickest of heads that they have to get this case behind them and start repairing the damage.
