Put yourself in Garrett Shrader’s shoes.

You’re a former 4-star recruit from Charlotte. You’re a former 2-time state champion and Player of the Year. You’re a year removed from being recruited by the likes of Alabama, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, Nebraska, Penn Sate and others. You’re rocking a beard that the grizzliest of mountain men would be proud of. You’re coming off a freshman season in which you got to start as your coach’s first hand-picked quarterback recruit, which was an opportunity you earned because you learned how to run the system and ultimately passed guys like Keytaon Thompson and Jalen Mayden. You’re ready to start your second season after an up-and-down first year that included turning yourself into a human helicopter, as well as a pre-Music City Bowl altercation with a former teammate.

And suddenly, you’re surrounded by a new coach who runs a totally new system.

Guess what? You’re also not the starter after that new coach went out and grabbed K.J. Costello, AKA the top grad transfer quarterback on the market.

Now step back into your own shoes and tell me that Shrader shouldn’t have immediate eligibility to play elsewhere. Like, without needing to hire Thomas Mars to go after the NCAA.

For what it’s worth, Shrader hasn’t indicated anything other than 100% support for this new regime. He welcomed Mike Leach at the airport when he arrived from Key West.

If you’re a believer in the “who have they followed on Twitter lately” thing, all of Shrader’s recent follows are MSU-related. For all I know, Shrader plans on staying in Starkville, treating 2020 as a redshirt year and taking over after Costello leaves. Perhaps that’s the plan.

But if Shrader wanted to pick up and leave tomorrow, there’s no reason that he should have to sit out a year because of “NCAA transfer rules.”

Those “NCAA rules” didn’t apply to Tate Martell when he left Ohio State for Miami. Why did Martell leave Ohio State? Because after Urban Meyer, the coach who recruited Martell, stepped down and turned the team over to Ryan Day, it was no longer a system fit. That’s why Day went out and hand-picked Justin Fields to be his quarterback. Martell saw the writing on the wall and hired Mars. Of course, Martell was granted immediate eligibility as an undergraduate transfer at Miami.

How is that situation different from Shrader’s in any way? Well, there is 1 way that it’s different. Unlike Martell, Shrader actually started for his team and would have clearly been his team’s starter had the coaching staff not been fired after just 2 years. And I suppose the other difference is that Martell had hundreds of thousands of social media followers by the time he left Ohio State while Shrader isn’t currently a national household name.

Sadly, I can already see that second fact actually carrying weight in the NCAA offices. As we know, the NCAA’s policy on granting hardship waivers is illogical and subjective.

As we found out a week ago, the Big Ten proposed a rule that would take the subjectivity out of that process. The proposal would grant immediate eligibility for a player to transfer once. It would eliminate the need for someone like Mars. It would create a world in which someone like Tennessee’s Aubrey Solomon wouldn’t have to wait until days before the season opener to find out if he’s eligible to play in the upcoming season.

But even if that proposal doesn’t turn into an NCAA rule by the time the 2020 season starts, Shrader should still be able to play somewhere else immediately if he wants to.

In fact, he should have immediate eligibility elsewhere even if he waits a year to transfer. Let’s say that Shrader goes the redshirt route this year at MSU to learn Leach’s system, but in spring of 2021, he realizes that he’s not the guy because someone runs the Air Raid better than he does. Shrader will have already used his redshirt and unless he has enough credits to graduate in 3 years, current NCAA transfer rules would still deem him ineligible for the 2021 season. That would be, in my opinion, a joke.

All Shrader has done in Starkville is roll with the punches. (Too soon?) When he shuffled back and forth with Tommy Stevens, he stayed ready for his inevitable in-game substitution. When he was put in tough spots to go out and win a game, he left it all out there.

And so far, Shrader rolled with stunning announcement that the guy who recruited him, Joe Moorhead, was replaced by arguably the most unique offensive mind in the sport. Nothing that Shrader said or did suggested that Costello’s arrival meant he was going to bolt. Maybe Shrader will develop into Leach’s project and he’ll lead the SEC in passing in 2021.

But in the same way that Moorhead wanted to work with his hand-picked quarterbacks in Stevens and Shrader instead of Dan Mullen recruits like Thompson and Mayden, I expect Leach will want to do the same. And if he thought Shrader was the answer, then why would he go out and land the top grad transfer available immediately after getting hired?

Leach’s quarterback room could look drastically different by this time next year. I’ll be surprised if Shrader is a part of it.

And unfortunately, I’ll be even more surprised if the NCAA actually does the right thing and grants him immediate eligibility elsewhere.

Heaven forbid they put themselves in Shrader’s shoes.