you do that, and recruiting becomes that much more difficult. This ain't the 80s, kids expect to play early, nowadays . And most programs who recruit at a certain level get blue Chip talent out there as soon as possible
You really can't redshirt much anymore...kids don't expect to play four full years of their eligibility. You waste a year of eligibility by redshirting. New four game rule is good because you get some game exposure to freshmen who might not be ready to play a lot.
So many kids expect to get drafted after only playing three years...we know how delusional a lot of kids are. They overestimate their draft stock and go late or not at all. So, they sacrifice their last chance to play a year of football.
This happened with our All-American TE Willie Smith in the mid-80's who never had a chance at a pro career. JJ tried to get him to stay but he was stubborn and wouldn't listen.
Another I remember vaguely was Carlo (not Carlos) Joseph who was a decent fullback in the '90's but foolishly thought he could go in the draft.
Because there is a risk that so many kids will leave early whether they will be ready or good enough you might waste a whole year by redshirting. At least with new rule, you can play them some.
So many things have changed in the last 2 or 3 decades. There are fewer players on scholarship. It has gone from 95 to 85, I believe. So, you have fewer players, less depth, and you need to get players playing earlier. The portal will make it tougher to stockpile. Look at kids going into the portal almost immediately after matriculating.
And for K9, who thinks players now expect to play right away, we've had the problem of unrealistic expectations for years: we had mini-crisis in the '80's when some players and especially their parents who felt Jimmy Johnson had misled them by promising playing time the first year. I remember reading about one kid's parents who were ****ed and said, "It was our understanding he would be playing." Not happy their kid came in and was given a shirt. JJ tried to redshirt almost that entire class. Might have been the '85 class, which was not that good anyway.
I remember Mike Rodbro, LB from suburban Chicago, who left over lack of playing time. I don't know if that was the kid whose parents complained in that quote but I remember the situation.
Back in the day, this wasn't an issue since freshmens couldn't play varsity. We'd have freshman teams and they would do stuff like travel to Mexico to play Mexico Poly. Our big guys would chase around quick little Mexicans like Muck boys chasing around rabbits.
Paint Jimmy Murphy brown and you got the picture. (Nothing racist intended).
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