ACC proposes major change to redshirt rule for 2018 season
According to The Athletic's Chris Vannini, the ACC has proposed that freshmen be allowed to play in any four games and still redshirt for the season starting in 2018. The American Football Coaches Association has supported the proposal. Under current policy, a freshman is not eligible to declare for a redshirt if he plays after a team's first four games of the season. The AFCA is currently having its annual convention.
This would be a major change and could potentially have dramatic ramifications to the Hokies next year. We want to see how good some of our guys are against ACC talent, we can get that opportunity right away against FSU in the opener. Patterson showed you enough in the spring, summer, and fall to make you think he might be able to play at this level right away? Do it, give him the opportunity right away and see how he does. If it works, you found your guy, if it doesn't, you can still redshirt him and save him for later. For young teams, and teams who are continually improving in recruiting, this provides an opportunity to get their questions answered on the field with as little impact as possible. There's also the possibility that, had this been in place this year, we would have seen Hooker come in to close out the year after Jackson got hurt in the Miami game, knowing he would still have his redshirt saved, rather than having to go to Bush, who couldn't really throw the ball.
Comments
If that's how they write the rule change proposal it's done poorly. They should be able to play any four games in a season including the bowl game.
That's the current rule. The ACC proposal would be that a freshman can play in any 4 games (bowl or regular season) and not burn a redshirt.
I thought playing even a single snap currently takes away your redshirt?
Without looking up the rules, I think that you're correct when it pertains to voluntary redshirts. I believe where the first four games comes in to play is in the case of a medical redshirt.
However, it sounds like the new rule change would apply to all redshirts?
This is how I have always understood it.
I like the proposed change. I also think I could support five years to play five, essentially eliminating the red shirt all together. Many degrees take the average student more than 4 years anyway.
Yeah, I think they're called doctors.
Great movie.
I think this would have as much of a positive impact on player health and safety as much as talent evaluation. If a coach has a player nicked up (like we saw with JJ against Miami) he can sub in a RS player to fill in for a game or two until the starter gets healthy without having to burn a whole year of eligibility. I like it.
So from a strategic perspective, do you treat the 4 games like time outs in a game? i.e. Save them for as long as you can until needed. What if you have playoff title hopes and a conference championship game? I wonder how those games will impact which ones the freshmen play in.
According to Mike London, you can just keep saving them.
- Mike London
I like this idea, but I can also see it leading to problems at the quarterback position. Say QP (or any QB at any school) comes in and balls out in those four games but coaches still want to redshirt but said QB doesn't? Could seeing that in game experience create some animosity between the player and coach? You might would generate a QB controversy since most coaches are going to want one QB1 all season. I don't think it'd be a huge deal but I can just see some issues come up.
Other than that, this is a fantastic idea. I'd love to see this happen.
If your scenario occurred, I would think the coaches would continue to play the hot hand and ride with him the rest of the season. I can't imagine someone playing lights out and then coaches saying, "Welp alright time to ride the pine, we're going to go with QB2 the rest of the year." I also think this could potentially help any conflict between a player and coaches over redshirting. For instance, instead of a guy seeing limited action in a couple games, then not playing the rest of the year and completely blowing a year of eligibility, he now gets four games to show out and can still save that year if coaches choose.
As Alum mentioned, I think this would be an excellent audition period to see what a promising freshman could do against P5 competition before making the decision to redshirt. A 4-game trial period would give coaches enough time to see if they can come right in and play at a high level or need more time for development and can still count the year as a redshirt. Having it be any 4 games would be massive, especially for bowl games.
If it occurred during the first four games yeah, but I wonder what would happen if they didn't play them initially and waited till conference play. I think if we did that this season with JJ and brought Hooker in for a few games it would have generated some QB drama.
I guess I just have a hard time seeing a coach bringing in a different QB halfway through the season for four games.
Agree with your other points though!
In the end, if coaches mess with players too much, these things have a way of evening out during recruiting. If the coach has a reputation for messing with players, eventually players will choose to go elsewhere.
If we brought somebody in for four games, he played well enough to start, and then we redshirted him anyway and he made a fuss about it ... especially to the press ... it would become a locker room cancer and a red flag for anybody looking to wear maroon and orange. You might also start to see an exodus of players transferring to programs with coaches who don't mess with their kids.
In the end, coaches know they have to treat their players fairly.
If the NCAA has the best interest of the players in mind, this is a no-brainer. It also takes the temptation of the magical freshman medical redshirt off the table.
NCAA, common sense, and benefit of the student-athletes don't often wind up in the same sentence.
Only way this will pass is if they can justify it increasing revenue.
Actually, I'm fully in the camp that if they're going to redshirt they shouldn't play a snap or it should be a medical redshirt. But, then, I'm still on the "student" side of "student-athlete" and believe if they get paid to play (they shouldn't) their scholarship should count as income for tax purposes.
My opinion is the redshirt should be used either for medical reasons (injured before/during the season) or to give the kid a year to acclimate to the system and to college as a whole.
It's not that I don't think this is a good idea, it definitely has merit, I just dislike it because of how I think redshirts should be used.
The article is not entirely clear to me about the specifics of this rule change. Will it only apply to freshmen, or any redshirting player? And can you really redshirt for non-medical reasons in a season in which you got on the field currently? I thought that 4-game rule only applied for medical redshirts.
I'm not sure how I feel about this one. If you're going to let a guy play a few games during his redshirt year, I think you need to make him sit out the same number of games to start the following year. Alternatively, you could just get rid of the redshirt year altogether and give an athlete 5 years of eligibility. Either one would be better, IMO, than changing the rule to say that you get 4 years plus 4 games of eligibility.
Wouldn't this turn November into extended spring football season for non-contenders?
Once we lost to GT this year, why wouldn't we have just emptied the redshirt bus and played all those guys?
If that is the case, is this good for competitiveness?
Eh, I think this goes against the "spirit" of the rule and I'm not a big fan. They should do away with the proactive "redshirt" totally if they do this. Just do what Notre Dame does- they don't "redshirt" players per se. If they play, they play, if not then they are eligible for a 5th year at the schools discretion (key) - done and done. If Fuente played Hooker this year- well then he played and is not eligible for a 5th year, if he didn't play, then VT can decide if he is on the roster in year 5. There really is no need for a "rule" except for medical reasons, IMHO
Wonder if this is a little bait to get the domers to consider joining; as a side benefit to the rule itself for the member institutions and players.
I don't interpret this as an ACC-only rule as much as "we're proposing this to the NCAA".
Really like this idea. Redshirting makes sense a lot of the time, but
being able to see how a player does in a game, then still being able
to retain all eligibility would be sweet.
To be honest, I love the idea of the redshirt being similar to the medical redshirt. First quarter of the season. But I like the first four games rather than any four games.
At the D3 level they did away with the redshirt. This is interesting because the athletes a cannot even practice with the team. If you practice and don't even play you lose that year of eligibility.
I like the idea, but, but limit it to any 3 games (about 25% of the season). Most freshmen aren't ready week 1, but they might be by week 8. Also allows someone to fill in for a injury for a game or two, without blowing a year of eligibility once the person they are replacing comes back and they are riding the bench again.
As for treating the end of the season like a spring game, I don't think that will be the case very often. Teams will either be fighting for bowl eligibly or coaches will be fighting for their jobs. If a team is 2-7 (no bowl chance) or 6-3 (bowling but conference champ out of reach) a team should use those last couple of games to build depth for the following year, however VT should always be in the hunt for the CFP so not something we have to worry about.
I like the idea of making it 3 games...
But also can see a situation where the starter gets hurt or is dinged up late in the season and the freshman can get the work for one game with the A team. Won't burn his red shirt. Gives the starter time to rest up. And makes for a better team next year because you have kids that aren't green right off the bat.
At the very least, I think a cool rule would be to allow red shirt dudes to play in bowl games that aren't part of the playoff.
They're just exhibition games anyway.
It would be a great motivator to keep the little chicks focused during bowl practice. (Also for seniors who are checking out during bowl practice. This could be used to motivate them. If you don't practice good, Junior Greenwood is taking your run.)
Great evaluation tool for coaches after bowl practices.
If you have the NFL guy who's sitting the bowl game out. It sure would be nice to be able to plug in the next man up to get some burn.
It seems like a good idea but also could be in some respects a headache for coaches. Essentially, all the freshmen become active players and how many games they play is tracked. The "spirit" of a redshirt year during which you know you (almost certainly) won't be playing and can focus more on academics is lost. It may also be a recruiting pitch in that you can promise a kid they will at least get on the field a few games but are not guaranteed to avoid a redshirt.
It does help teams with depth issues and injuries and helps build continuity from year to year. All things considered, it's a winner and I hope it happens.