DESTIN, Fla. -- The SEC is leaning toward supporting a new NCAA rule that seems to border on free agency.

The NCAA passed a rule in late April that allows athletes in any sport who earn a bachelors degree and have a year of athletic eligibility remaining to transfer to another school as a graduate student and play immediately.

The existing SEC rule states that an athlete who transfers must sit out a season before becoming eligible to play at his or her new school.

"We'd like to be in line with the NCAA rule," SEC executive associate commissioner Mark Womack said on Wednesday on the second day of the league's annual spring business meetings. "It's not like you have kids transferring in and out. You have kids transferring who have already graduated."

How long the new NCAA rule will stay in effect is anybody's guess. SEC commissioner Mike Slive said there's already a move underfoot from athletic directors and presidents to get the rule rescinded.

But until then, it's game on.

There have already been a few examples of graduate school transfers into the SEC, such as:

• Vanderbilt, which is searching for a quarterback to replace Jay Cutler, will have a seasoned QB fall in its lap. Richard Kovalcheck, who started seven games last year at Arizona, throwing 11 interceptions before being benched with a 1-6 record, said he is transferring to Vandy this fall as a graduate student. He was originally recruited by Southern Cal and Tennessee in 2002.

Kovalcheck will have two years left at Vandy. Since he hasn't enrolled yet, Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson can't specifically comment on him. But he's happy to have an experienced QB in the house.

"I don't think the rule is going to be that big a deal," Johnson said. "Most guys are going to have just one year left to play.

"It's tough for a guy to come in for a season and have an impact. It's hard for somebody to graduate in three years. But if a guy can get to a good graduate school and finish out one last year of eligibility, why not let him do it?"

• Tennessee women's track accepted Lindsay Hyatt as a graduate student from Stanford in 2004. Though she had just one season of eligibility left and not the two remaining years as required by the SEC, she was able to transfer to Tennessee because Stanford didn't have the graduate courses she wanted.

UT appealed to the SEC on that basis, and she became a member of the Lady Vols' national championship distance medley relay.

• Georgia women's softball player Kellie Middleton graduated from Notre Dame in three years, transferred this past school year to Georgia and was a second-team all-American who batted a team-high .409. She has one more year of eligibility.

Many of the SEC athletic directors as well as coaches in football, men's basketball and women's basketball here for the meetings, weren't aware of the new NCAA rule. That is, until they arrived here on Tuesday.

"I found out about it just last week," Arkansas men's basketball coach Stan Heath said. "And I said, 'Huh?'

"From an academic standpoint, it does sound good. From a basketball standpoint and running a program, it can be very difficult. The person who graduates early with a year left to play becomes very marketable.

"That person gets rewarded, but in some ways it penalizes your program. As a coach, now you're thinking that maybe your players shouldn't take so many summer courses, that you might want to slow down the progress toward a degree a bit.

"You hope for the most part that a kid would graduate and stay in that program because he has been successful. But some of that may depend on what kind of courses are offered in graduate school."

Arkansas football coach Houston Nutt doesn't like the new rule. He and his fellow SEC coaches discussed the fact that players might be re-recruited if it's known they've graduated and are entering graduate school.

"Will you now have to recruit a kid twice?' Nutt said. "I hope not."

Two years ago, Auburn star running back Ronnie Brown played his senior season as a graduate student. Under the new NCAA rule, he would have been eligible to transfer anywhere after graduation and play the next season.

"It's very scary to think of that," Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville said. "It's one of those situations where you hope a player wants to stay with his teammates for his last season. I think you can look at this rule like maybe there's a third-team quarterback who graduates, wants to transfer as graduate student and have the opportunity to play a little bit."

Tennessee football coach Phillip Fulmer said there could be some good players in mid-major conferences who will want to transfer as graduate students to major conferences.

"We could be interested in some of those guys, especially if you have guys leave," Fulmer said. "I don't know if this rule will last. I don't know where it even came from."

LSU men's basketball coach John Brady doesn't think the new rule will have much of an effect on his sport.

"Most of the really good players who can have an impact for one season are already gone," he said. "They leave for the NBA after one or two years. I'd like to know the thought process behind passing that rule."

Though Tennessee men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl has a returning senior who has graduated --Dane Bradshaw -- he doesn't fear losing Bradshaw in a graduate-school transfer situation. Bradshaw is recovering from wrist surgery.

Pearl said when he left Milwaukee-Wisconsin after the 2004-05 season to take the Tennessee job, he had a couple of players who had already graduated with a remaining year of eligibility.

"If this new rule had been in effect, they could have come with me to Tennessee and they would have been good enough to play," Pearl said. "But that would have been inappropriate. I wouldn't have done it."