Swinney has ideas on how to fix the redshirt rule

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney is a fan of the new redshirt rules and has a few more ideas too.

David Hood - Senior Writer - Wednesday, October 30 2024

CLEMSON — Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney likes the new rule that allows players to play in the postseason without counting against their eligibility, but he has an even better idea: eliminate redshirts altogether and let players have five years to play.

Players can play in as many as four games and still redshirt. In August, however, the NCAA announced a blanket rule (17.11.6.2 Annual Exemptions) that will exempt postseason games from counting toward a player's four allotted games in a given season. The new rule went into effect immediately for the 2024 college football season.

A good example would be Clemson wide receiver Tyler Brown, who has played in four games to date. He is recovering from TightRope surgery and there is a chance he could miss the rest of the regular season. If he does, this would count as a redshirt year for Brown. However, Brown could play in the postseason (as many as five games if the Tigers make the ACC Championship and play in four Playoff games) and still redshirt.

“Yeah, I love it,” Swinney said of the new rule. “I mean if we didn't have it, we'd all be in trouble in college football. The reason we have that rule is because you didn't have kids available to play in bowl games and now all of a sudden, you're having a kid that's redshirted, maybe you're having to burn a redshirt just because you don't have anybody else in the bowl game. At least it gives you some time to figure some things out. And it also gave you a chance to, we did that with James Skalski that year, remember we were able to hold him. He had the best gig going, right? He came back and he played the last, I think he played in one game against Georgia Tech and then he played the last three games and all the postseason all the way to the national championship and saved his year. So, I think that was good.

“And then you had, again, unintended consequences. Now the other side of it comes and you say, okay, I'm playing four, I'm redshirting or I'm opting out, I want to keep my year. So you see that all over college football. Now we've had that here and that was kind of an unintended aspect of it. But then with the way the portal has come about and the windows, there's a lot of teams now that, I mean every final four teams had kids opt out last year. So they did. That's part of the reason why they said, okay, it's four games, plus the postseason doesn't count because if a kid played four games and now you got five guys that have gone in the portal and left and you're trying to play a postseason game, just health and safety of your team, but this kid's already played four games, you don't want to have to burn a whole year for one game.”

Swinney says he has an idea that makes the most sense.

“I wish they’d just go five years and be done with it. Just let everybody play five years,” Swinney said. “And just clean it up, you know. So you don’t have guys that are 26, and all the medicals and all the stuff. Just, you get five years. And I think that would really clean things up for everyone. I think it would stop a lot of the opt outs, too, you know. Because I get it. If a kid’s not happy where he’s at and he’s played four games, he wants to move on, he wants to save his year, I get that. But if you just went to five years, guys would play. And so now that keeps your rosters a little bit more intact, you know, to finish a season.

“So that’s something that, I don’t know where that is on the docket, but I would love to see that. You just get five years. You play five years. It doesn’t matter how many games you play, whatever, you get five years. So that would eliminate some of that stuff.”

Swinney said five years would make sense when scholarship rules change from 85 to 105.

“Because you do get in a situation with a couple of kids where you’re like, ‘Gah, he’s played three games or four games’ and maybe you’d like to hold him, but you’ve got three games left. And all of a sudden you really need him for that game,”Swinney said. “So if you had that five years, it really wouldn’t matter. … And now we’re going to 105 and having rosters at 105. That’s going to be a problem. Because rosters are going to [shrink].

“And it’s not the NFL where you can always stay at 105, whatever your number is. We don’t have access to players. So your roster’s going to dwindle down. And if you’ve got some guys that are trying to redshirt or whatever, that’s why I wish they’d just do away with that so you could keep the depth. … Five years would clean it up. Maybe you get one medical opportunity. And then that way you can at least manage the rosters.”