The idea has been an issue in college football for more than 20 years. It’s brought up every few years, each time shot down because it seems too radical for the football bureaucracy.

Yet the idea doesn’t go away – rather, it has been gaining momentum and making its way to the front of NCAA agendas.

The idea is known as ‘five to play five.’ Simply put, NCAA football players would be granted five years of eligibility, as opposed to the current system of four. Redshirting – sitting out a full year athletically while still attending class to gain an extra year of eligibility – would be eliminated.

But the idea is anything but simple. It affects nearly every off-the-field facet of the sport. From recruiting to redshirting, from economics to academics. The change would have far reaching effects, but its proponents argue that two main NCAA changes – the addition of a 12th regular season game and the gradual reduction of scholarships – mean it’s time to bring the issue to the forefront.

The issue picked up more steam this summer when NCAA President Myles Brand said he could be in favor of the new legislation, provided that the redshirting process is eliminated.

With new gusto behind an old idea, members of the college football community are beginning to predict the effects the new legislation would have on various aspects of the sport. And in each case, there are inevitably differing opinions.

Freshman year

Five to play five would undoubtedly redefine freshman year for most football players. The most common practice now is to give most freshmen the redshirt so they can get acclimated to the college environment, practice with the team and mature mentally and physically.

But for Larry Blakeney, head coach at Troy, redshirting a freshman can be a taboo discussion on the recruiting path, and it must be handled delicately.

‘It’s a negative term for most kids anyhow,’ Blakeney said. ‘You talk about redshirting a kid when you recruit him and you might not get him. We’ve always tried to sell it as a positive because most freshmen need to be redshirted when they come in to put their best four years on the back end.’

To sell a recruit on the idea of coming to a school knowing he will be redshirted, Blakeney poses him a question: If you could trade your ninth grade year for an extra year in high school, do you think you would be a better player?

The answer is almost always yes.

Off the field, coaches are beginning to turn away from the common notion that redshirting a player gives him time to adjust to college life. The American Football Coaches Association, which sponsors the legislation, has conducted studies on this subject and concluded that freshmen actually perform better academically when they are playing with the team, said Todd Bell, director of publications and media for the AFCA. Bell said this can be attributed to players getting into a daily routine and finding study time.

Blakeney, a member of the NCAA Football Issues Committee, has witnessed the same effect throughout his 30 years of coaching at the collegiate level.

‘Most freshmen do better if they think their opportunity to play is still active,’ Blakeney said. ‘The minute you mark them redshirt or the minute you tell them that it’s over, then to me, 90 percent of them, that’s the minute, that’s the time that you have to start being concerned about them attending class, doing as good as they can do in their sport, doing as good as they can do in other ways. They basically are better students for us if they are not redshirted as a freshman.’

Injuries

Blakeney sees the issue of player health as the most important of all aspects of college football that five to play five would change.

Redshirting gives coaches a difficult and all-too-common decision when November rolls around. Near the end of the season, when players are fatigued and often playing hurt, coaches around the country are faced with a tough decision: Should they play a redshirt – using an entire year of his eligibility on just a few games – to pick up some wins? Or should they continue with an injured player and put him at risk for greater injury?

Two years ago, the NCAA passed a bylaw allowing a school to schedule 12 games in its regular-season schedule every season. Add a conference championship game for conferences with at least 12 teams, and a bowl game, and some programs are consistently facing 14-game schedules every year.

The heavy schedules have resulted in thin rosters at the end of the season, Blakeney said. While for most players it means more games to play, it has the reverse effect for some players who must give up their redshirt year in exchange for two or three games.

The other option for coaches is to save a player’s redshirt, while possibly risking an injury to a starter who may be playing injured or fatigued. A fifth year of eligibility would give coaches 20 percent larger rosters, so coaches could rest injured players.

‘Redshirting for the most part with kids is a negative term, so you deal with it delicately, sort of ease them into it,’ Blakeney said. ‘And then about the time you’re sure someone gets hurt on the starting line or your depth chart narrows or tightens, then you need to pull that guy out of the shirt, which has been done many times.’

Recruiting classes

One issue still up in the air, as far as expected consequences go, is the size of recruiting classes. As it is, football programs have 85 scholarships but can allocate no more than 25 of them to an incoming class of freshmen.

A concern in the football community is the extent to which giving players the option to stay for an extra year will reduce the size of incoming classes, resulting in fewer opportunities for recruits. While there are no ways to answer this question accurately in the current system, plenty have offered their hypotheses for the possible effects.

Nick Carparelli Jr., Big East associate commissioner for football, said he would not expect fewer opportunities for freshmen because most scholarship athletes stay around for five years and take a redshirt year.

For Blakeney, the issue is more complex. He said that with a well-maintained program, the freshman class size would likely decrease. But he would see that as a positive.

‘That’s something that we don’t really know for sure,’ Blakeney said of the effect on recruiting class size. ‘But that’s a good thing, because you can only give 25 anyhow, so if you don’t have to invest more in that same number every year.’

Graduation rates

Logic, and the general consensus in the football community, is that graduation rates would rise if players were given the opportunity for a fifth year of eligibility. Players who are not redshirted have four years to complete their degrees. It takes the average football player around four and a half years to graduate, according to Steve Pederson, athletic director at Nebraska and chairman of the NCAA football issues committee.

‘For a football player, generally you’re just talking about one extra semester anyway,’ Bell said. ‘I think a lot of guys who would stay for the fifth year of eligibility would more than likely graduate in December, which in four and a half years is right along what the average is for a traditional student and also an athlete.’

Others question the academic message that a fifth year of eligibility sends. Charlie Weis, head coach at Notre Dame, stated publicly last November that given the fact that most of his players graduate in four years, giving them five years to graduate would send the wrong signals.

Pederson believes the opposite, and he has been one of the leading voices for the five-to-play-five rule.

‘So as you look at the opportunities for education, what we are talking about is a chance to enhance education, not drag it out,’ Pederson said in an Aug. 16 teleconference. ‘We certainly believe it will affect graduation rates in a positive way.’

Viability

Most college coaches are on board with five to play five. The football issues committee asked conferences for their input on the idea, and so far, the Big East, Southeastern Conference and the Big 12 conference have come out in favor of the plan. The football issues committee and the AFCA have come out in support.

So what has been keeping the legislation off the books for more than 20 years? Those pushing for the issue say many university presidents are quietly not on board with the idea. And it wasn’t until recently that Brand, the NCAA president, voiced his support.

But the consensus is still that players won’t be suiting up for their fifth year any time soon. Carparelli said that based on the NCAA legislation process, the earliest any changes could go into effect would be two years from now.

‘This is the first time that we’re actually starting to see some agreement from the higher-ups in the NCAA structure and administrators at various universities around the country,’ Carparelli said. ‘When you stop and look at it, it makes sense academically, it makes sense analytically. In the long run, it’s in the best interests of the student-athlete.’

Published on September 24, 2007 at 12:00 pm