New redshirt rule will make life a lot easier for coaches

For years college football coaches have labored, even agonized, over whether to play a freshman who might be able contribute immediately or hold him out of games to preserve a year of eligibility and hopefully cash in greater rewards down the road.

Those decisions are about to get a whole lot easier.

Rarely does the NCAA pass legislation that is both wholeheartedly endorsed by coaches and beneficial to players, but the new redshirt rule appears to be that kind of smash hit. Players will now be allowed to play in up to four games and still qualify for a redshirt season, maintaining four years of eligibility. In the past, playing just one game could cost a player an entire season of eligibility. Coaches say the change will provide needed roster depth, improve player development and avoid many of those damned-if-you-dodamned-if-you-don’t situations where the choice becomes: Short-term need or long-term goals?

“Brilliant. Love it. Greatest rule the NCAA has ever put in in the last 20 years,” Minnesota coach PJ Fleck said.

It’s a game-changer. But how, exactly?

“I don’t know if people on the outside or even maybe us on the inside understand how different that rule is. How much the game is going to be different, the strategy behind it,” Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley said.

All players, no matter their class year, can be redshirted. Medical redshirts are common in college football, giving a player back a season of eligibility that was mostly lost to injury. But it is with the freshman class that teams need a redshirt plan.

Even before incoming recruits step on campus, coaches start mapping out who is likely to play and who will probably sit. Sometimes the depth chart makes that decision. In other cases, player performance forces the issue.

The evaluation process is constant, but former UCLA coach Jim Mora said by the start of the season the staff has identified the players who will play, those who will redshirt and what players were on the bubble. “But you had to stay fluid because of things that could can happen during the season,” said Mora, who will join ESPN as a studio analyst this season.

The new rule should also cut down on the shenanigans that occur when a coach plays a player for a game or two, changes his mind and then, suddenly, the player has an injury and appeals to the NCAA for a medical redshirt.

“There’s probably no more faking injuries after game three, which everybody did,” West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said.