Five to play five
The NCAA is approving a "five to play five" plan that allows collegiate athletes a fifth year of eligibility without using a redshirt. What impact will this have?
The redshirt year has been dying a slow and painful death for a few years now. One of the more recent, nearly-lethal blows was when the NCAA ruled that players could exceed the four game limit and preserve their redshirt if some of the games that pushed them over four were incurred in the postseason. It was very reasonably concluded that players shouldn’t be punished if they were pressed into action by a program’s needs during the postseason.
It was obviously lame if a player lost a redshirt because he had to play a few snaps in a playoff game for his team trying to win a championship. There were countless examples of guys losing redshirt seasons because of incompetent roster management by their team’s staff or just poor injury luck on the team.
No more. Players now have five full years of eligibility. As someone who took a fifth year (and then a summer) to finish my own Bachelor of Arts1, I can sympathize. Overall I think this is going to impact the game of college football in the same way that other emergent trends such as the infusion of NIL and the opening of the transfer portal.