You’d think that after all the time I’ve spent in school I’d know this one …
What is a redshirt freshman? I keep hearing the term over and over again and I have no idea what it means. I think it might have something to do with eligibility but I’m not sure.
Can anyone out there explain this to me?
A player has 4 years of NCAA eligibility. Sometimes a college team will sign a guy out of high school who they want to work with a little bit. This guy won’t play in any games his 1st year of college, but he’ll practice with the team. (Sometimes in practice a guy will wear a red shirt so other players know not hit him) His second year of college he’ll actually start playing. It will be his first year of college football so he is considered a freshman.
This is generally (but not exclusively) done with quarterbacks to give them time to learn the offence but also allow them to play in real games for 4 years. A redshirt quaterback will almost always actually wear a red shirt during practices in his first year so he doesn’t get injured before he has a chance to really play.
I think a player can also be “redshirted” if he gets injured in the first game or so. That way he doesn’t lose a year of eligibility.
Confirm or deny, anyone?
I think you can redshirt because of an injury, but it depends upon how much you have played. It’s not necessarily one game for football. It’s a percentage of plays. You can go to school for five years and play in four of them. In extraordinary circumstances (like a really bad injury), the NCAA will allow you a sixth year.
Redshirting can be done in any sport by any athlete in college. In fact it is mostly not quarterbacks who do this, although a fairly high percentage of quartbacks do. The ideas given above are mostly correct. But a little over simplified.
According to NCAA rules, once you enroll in college, you have 5 years to complete 4 years of eligibility. So you can take one year of redshirt for whatever reason. The NCAA also allows for an athlete to appeal a season in which he was injured and competed in fewer than 10% of his team’s contests (one game for football as stated above) to continue his eligibility; this is technically called a medical redshirt. Women athletes are allowed to take a year off if they get pregnant. And, Mormons (and presumably other religions) can take up to 2 years off for religious reasons (a missions trip) without forfeiting any of their eliigibility.
I think the record for number of years eligible is held by a swimmer from the University of Texas who had his regular redshirt year as well as 2 medical redshirt years. He was elligible for 7 years. Also, many athletes in so called “Olympic sports” (which is what they used to call “non-revenue sports”) take a year off prior to the olympics to concentrate on that.
I am pretty sure you can get all this info on http://www.ncaa.org but I read it when I started college, and I’m not going through that mess again.
Diver
So, even though I didn’t participate in any sports in 4 years as an undergrad (at a school in fierce opposition to USCDiver’s) and another year in grad school, I can’t go back to grad school again and try to fulfill my lifelong dream of playing in the Final Four?
That’s right BobT, you can’t compete in varsity sports unless you are an undergrad (and i think you have to be working on your first bachelor’s degree, but i’m not sure of that)except under one condition: if you finish your undergrad degree in 3 years, you can compete during your first year of grad school. Peyton Manning did this this “senior” season. It doesn’t apply however if you take a redshirt year and then graduate in 4 years (you’d still have a year of eligibility left but you can’t use it).
Oh and Bob, that’s University of South Carolina (the original USC) not S. Cal. in case you were wondering. Like we always say here, “You don’t need a Trojan, if you don’t have the Cocks”
USCDiver, you have my sincere apologies for confusing your school with “the school across the street from the Sizzler”.
You know BobT, I always respected your knowledge of sports–now I have yet another reason to like you (I also graduated from the home of the greatest college basketball dynasty ever).
I wouldn’t look forward to playing in the Final Four any time soon, though, even if the rules did allow it–we keep losing our top players to the NBA after two years (Davis, Moiso).
Re the OP: If I’m not mistaken, a player can conceivably come off of redshirt if he opts to play in a late season or playoff/bowl game. As I recall, Freddie Mitchell of UCLA was at least considering coming off a redshirting season (he had gotten injured in the second game of the year) to play in the Rose Bowl two years ago. I don’t recall if he actually opted off redshirting or not, though.
One of my teammates in college was in his sixth year due to 2 years of medical redshirting (knee injury.) I myself reshirted my first year just because I knew I could use the time and I knew I would otherwise waste a year of eligibility sitting on the bench twiddling my thumbs.
A player can redshirt any year. A player at Maryland (or Mississippi…I don’t know, some school starting with M) is considering redshirting his junior year due to various transfers arriving at the school.
Bernie Kosar used that loophole to get to the Cleveland Browns, the team he always dreamed of playing for as a kid. He hustled and got his U. of Miami degree in 3 years, making sure not to graduate until after the NFL draft, then hired an agent and made himself ineligible for further college play. Since the NFL allowed any college graduate to be eligible for the draft (they’ve since thrown in the towel on that one), Bernie was available for the supplemental draft, and Cleveland took him.