The Southeastern Conference is doing away with its intraconference transfer rule that prohibits players who have moved from one league school to another from immediate eligibility. Following a Thursday vote on the matter by the SEC's presidents and chancellors, the league will allow immediate eligibility for intra-conference transfers.

This means high-impact transfers like Henry To'o To'o (Tennessee to Alabama) and Arik Gilbert (LSU to Georgia) will play at their new respective programs this season if they meet all eligibility requirements scholastically.

Georgia coach Kirby Smart is one high-profile coach who has expressed reservations about allowing intra-conference transfers with no penalties. Alabama's Nick Saban was asked about the NCAA's rule on one-time transfers within a conference earlier this spring prior to the SEC's vote.

"We're gonna adapt to it and make it an advantage for us," Saban said via Zoom. "I think what's gonna happen, as you see how often in a lot of leagues, the good players go to a good team and the bad players leave good teams because they're not playing. So is that gonna make the rich get richer? I don't know. You can decide that. But we will only look for transfers that are gonna help our team be better. So that means we have to have a need for them.

"They have to be better than a guy that we have in the program right now at their position. So we'll be selective with how we choose guys."

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told Paul Finebaum last month that SEC schools were "split" on the transfer rule.

"All 14 of our universities can submit proposals to change our bylaws, change our intra-conference transfer rule," Sankey said. "We have some who are ready to take it away and others who say, 'Leave it just as is. In fact, don't grant any waivers.' Then, a whole bunch of our universities are in the middle. They're going to make the decision between now and the end of May, early June.

"Our universities are going to wrestle with this issue and make decisions about what is our transfer policy for transfers inside the conference moving forward. I think what you have, literally, is what I just described. You've got two groups that are on opposite ends and apparently half of our conference somewhere in the middle, saying, 'We're going to have to change. It's time to update our intra-conference transfer policy.' But we need to have some common expectations for ourselves."