Division I adopted new rule effective in 2018 that permits football student-athletes to compete in up to 4 games without using a season of competition
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Two Years In, the New Division I Football Redshirt Exception is Taking Shape & Starting to Reveal New Motives Around Playing Time and Roster Management
Executive Summary
Division I adopted new rule effective in 2018 that permits football student-athletes to compete in up to 4 games without using a season of competition
Eligible student-athletes may compete in up to four seasons of competition within a five-year period
Football student-athlete health & safety, as well as academics and retention, are primary drivers behind the new rule
Decisions around a football student-athletes’ playing time thickening the plot
Although basketball will be top of mind with March Madness right around the corner, spring football practice is also in motion and a one-sentence exception added to the NCAA Division I Manual in August 2018 related to football redshirting is creating a cascade of intended (and unintended) impacts, both on and off the field.
Specifically, Division I Proposal 2017-17 allows FBS and FCS football student-athletes to participate in up to four (4) contests (including a bowl game) in a season without surrendering a season of competition. The adopted proposal, now codified as Division I Bylaw 12.8.3.1.6, took effect beginning with the 2018 college football season. Prior to the 2018 campaign, a football student-athlete who stepped on the field for one snap or kickoff would be charged a season of competition. Now there's much more flexibility when it comes to using a season of football competition.
What drove this marked change?
The legislative rationale underpinning Proposal 2017-17 stated:
“Under current legislation, a student-athlete who participates in one play of one contest uses a season of competition. This proposal would enhance student-athlete well-being by permitting a student-athlete, in football, to participate in up to four games without using a season of competition. The current rule often places coaches in a difficult position to decide whether to play a student-athlete in a limited amount of competition or to preserve the student-athlete's season of eligibility.
The opportunity to play in a small number of games will ease this decision for coaches and help the student-athlete's development and transition to the college game. Additional flexibility with substitutes may allow starters and more experienced student-athletes additional rest and/or to feel less pressure to play through injuries. The opportunity to play will help student-athletes who might otherwise "redshirt" to remain engaged with the team and may reduce the number of transfers that occur annually in football. Another potential benefit of this legislation is the opportunity for younger student-athletes to participate in bowl games, which are often as much about preparing for the following season as completing the current season. This legislation is supported by the AFCA Board of Trustees. Finally, this proposal may reduce administrative burden by eliminating the need to process a medical hardship request if a student-athlete is injured after limited participation.”
One rationale for the new rule was to enable head coaches the ability to play a football student-athlete in a few games without the worry of burning that student-athlete’s season of competition. Such flexibility to use your depth-chart early and often facilitates student-athlete health and well-being across the entire roster. Unencumbering a head coach's playing-time decisions with the weight of burning a student-athlete's season off of one play is especially relevant in blowout games where ideally a head coach wants to pull starters sooner to provide those student-athletes rest and allow back-ups some time on the field.
Concurrently, the reserve football student-athletes seeing little to no game time are often freshmen or first-year transfers acclimating to their new schools, football programs, and coaches. By allowing these reserve student-athletes to see some playing time without costing them a full season of competition, the new rule could, at least hypothetically, facilitate these student-athletes’ sense of belonging and satisfaction with their current school and forestall student-athletes’ desire to seek that playing time elsewhere in future seasons.
As traditional NCAA seasons-of-competition rules go, the football redshirt exception stands out in two respects.
First, the four games in question are from within the fall championship season for football, which is distinct from other redshirt exceptions that allow for competition, but not in the championship segment. There are other redshirt exceptions for various sports that permit student-athletes to compete in a certain number of contests without “burning” a season, but generally not contests that count toward qualifying for the postseason, like an NCAA championship.
For example, student-athletes in the fall sports of Field Hockey, Men's Soccer, Women's Soccer, Women's Volleyball and Men's Water Polo may play in contests during their “non-championship segment” in the spring term without burning a season. Exceptions like this give the student-athletes reasonable competitive opportunities in a segment where individual development and training, and not necessarily the final outcome of the match, are the priorities. Coaches also like this flexibility so they can give playing time to more student-athletes without worrying about who might use a season while simultaneously assessing how their players are developing in the off-season. However, those sports cannot -- at least to date -- permit their student-athletes playing time in a few games during the fall championship segment without burning one of the four seasons of competition.
A second distinct impact of the new football redshirt rule is that four games constitutes 33% of the regular season. That is a lot of playing time, historically speaking, for a student-athlete to be able to compete yet not burn a season. By comparison, if a Division I baseball or softball student-athlete could play in 33% of their team’s season without using a season of competition, they would be able to appear in upwards of 18 to 19 games (both sports spring championship contest limit is 56 games). For both men's and women's basketball, student-athletes can play 31 actual regular season games, so mirroring football’s redshirt rule, a basketball student-athlete could play in 10 or 11 games and not use a season. Optically, four contests may not seem like many, but comparatively speaking, it is.
What is also interesting is the proposal’s rationale did not expressly contemplate a situation in which a football team, off to a slow start, opts to protect its roster by intentionally redshirting star student-athletes with the notion of building a stronger roster for next season.
It’s 21st century roster management in Division I football. Something we delve in to further next week in Part II of this feature on football redshirting's new day.
Athletics Veritas is presented for information purposes only and should not be considered advice or counsel on NCAA compliance matters. For guidance on NCAA rules and processes, always consult your university’s athletics compliance office, conference office, and/or the NCAA.
