When Redshirting Goes Wrong: Boston College Fans Take Note

The professionalization of college athletics is a thorny issue, one that we addressed in a recent blog post on Boston Colleges current football team. We pointed out that many of the elite players on BCs football team this year, such as star quarterback Matt Ryan, are no longer really students because they have already graduated and are spending minimal time in the classroom. Without the “student” part of student-athlete, we argued, these football players become exclusively money-making and media-attracting devices for their school and skirt the line between college and professional sports.

The reaction from BC and Matt Ryan fans to the blog post was harsh. Some accused us of having a bias against BC and unfairly singling the team out. Others wondered whether we would have been happier if the players had slacked off in earlier semesters in order to stretch their degrees over five years.

That wasn’t our intent. Perhaps we weren’t clear enough that we were using BC as an example of a practice that is going on at many big-time football schools around the country. We applaud BC for doing a good job graduating its football players. But that doesn’t mean BC and other schools can’t be criticized for their contributions to the commercialization of college football.

Specifically, big-time football schools have figured out how to strategically use the NCAAs rules on redshirting to produce these fifth-year, semi-professional athletes. Instead of using redshirting to address the individual needs of injured or academically-struggling athletes, it has become a widespread strategic tool that undermines the founding principles of college sportsthat all players are students, and that they participate in college athletics to enhance their educational development. The continued flouting of these principles raises serious questions about whether the NCAA deserves to maintain its tax-exempt status.

Redshirting, and When Its Appropriate

All college athletes are given four years of eligibility to compete in a given sport. However, in Division I, they can spread those four years of eligibility over five years, as long as they remain an enrolled “student” at the school (which according to NCAA eligibility rules requires six hours per semester). The year in which the athlete does not compete is known as a “redshirt” year.

There are a couple of good reasons why an athlete might choose to redshirt for a season, all related to that athletes individual needs. The most rational explanation for redshirting is injuryif an injury occurs that will leave a player on the sideline for an entire season, then that athlete has the opportunity to compete for an additional year once healthy. Redshirting can also be used if a player arrives at school not academically prepared for the rigors of college work and needs time to catch up (which is common on big-time football teams at colleges that lower their admissions standards for football players). This gives the player a year to adjust to college and learn how to be a successful student without having to dedicate a significant amount of time to the playing field.

Strategic Use of Redshirting

Unfortunately, redshirting has become a widely-used strategy to benefit teams instead of a last-resort option to benefit individual athletes (see Ohio State’s and USC’s rosters). It is extremely common for a team to redshirt many of its freshman playersnot because the players choose to or need to, but because the coach wants them to bulk up and study playbooks for an additional year. This gives the coach a competitive advantage over other teams, as he has filled his squad with bigger, more experienced players.

In addition, because academic requirements for a college degree can be completed in four years, the players have a whole year to just sit around and focus on football. This obviously also gives a team a competitive advantage, especially if the fifth-year athlete happens to be the quarterback. As Colt Brennan, Hawaiis quarterback and a finalist for the Heisman Trophy, told the New York Times: “It definitely helps with football season. Basically, what your focus is on is Saturday and the game. The distractions are a lot less.” (And by “distractions,” he means time spent on schoolwork).

Whats the problem?

If players graduate in four years, why should we care if they stick around for one more year? We should care because it violates the central tenet of college sports that athletes, as talented as they may be, are students first. The NCAA makes this point explicit in the justification it provided to Congress last year for its tax-exempt status:

The purpose of the collegiate model is to enhance the educational development of student-athletesThose who participate in college sports are students and are not employed to play sportsWhile intercollegiate athletics is very entertaining, entertainment is not the primary purpose of the enterprise.

These fifth-year players, however, are essentially playing as professionals (of course, without the getting paid part), and are making a joke of the term “student-athlete.” They are being used as pawns in a competitive advantage race, instead of fulfilling their roles as students whose primary goal is to get a degree.

Reforming the Rules on Redshirting

Colleges that want to remain competitive in football are not going to give up the practice of redshirting on their own. Too much money is at stake. The NCAA rules for Division I football need to be tightened so that all schools will be forced to operate on an even playing field. (Division III already eliminated the practice of redshirting except for medical reasons in 2004).

The Ivy League is the only Division I conference that has chosen to implement its own rules on redshirting. Redshirting is allowed only as a result of injury or some other “reason beyond control.” Players have to apply for a waiver from the League with documentation of an injury or any personal reasons for missing a year of competition. As The Yale Herald put it, “The league forbids the sort of systematic redshirting that predominates at major football institutions and similarly disavows redshirting for the purpose of improving future squads.”

The NCAA should take a cue from the Ivy League and Division III and reform its Division I rules on redshirting. Redshirting should be redefined as a last resort option for individual players instead of the norm for all schools. Under our new redshirt rules, football players would have to request a redshirt waiver from their conference, and the conference would evaluate each individual player’s need for an extra year of college.

The resistance from big-time football schools to such a change would be intense, but if the NCAA wants to ensure that college football remains a tax-exempt activity, it had better act to curb the proliferation of fifth-year semi-professional athletes who only take classes in billiards and CPR.