Penn State fan chiming in here to note that I explored this same question in a post on BWT [
here], and I don't think it's that B1G rules
supersede NCAA rules because the rules don't actually conflict (and for obvious reasons can't conflict)--they penalize different aspects of the same event. In a Venn diagram, the B1G transfer rule would sit entirely within the NCAA circle.
Shorter version of my post is that (1) the NCAA penalizes transferees with a loss of scholarship year if they transfer to any other D1 school (regardless of conference) w/o having first obtained a permission to contact letter and obtained a release; (2) B1G penalizes
matriculated intra-conference transferees with a loss of competition eligibility.
Important to realize that the B1G rule isn't waivable by the outgoing school--there's no "release" Penn State could grant Suriano that gets him around the B1G rule. The "release" only applies to the NCAA rule, and so would only save his scholarship dollars in the following year.
Whether there's any grey area to circumvent the B1G rule is entirely unclear, and perhaps why this situation is dragging out, as the parties don't have much guidance. There's no explicit criteria in the rules that would enable us to connect the dots as to why Micic was permitted an exception, but it also wasn't hard to infer that his situation was somewhat unique given the sudden coaching change, a factor that's not really present with respect to Suriano.
So I figured I'd post given how I keep seeing people everywhere suggest that this all hangs on Nick getting a release. While a release would still be required to save scholarship money into next year, there's no release that PSU could grant that would prevent the loss of a year of competition eligibility, and I imagine that would be the bigger sticking point.
