I know that a lot of things impact how a player improves over the course of a season  -- GPA, practice minute allocation, starting attribute values for the skill, minutes played...I'm probably forgetting one or more. My question though -- does a player's class year make a difference?

I've always assumed that, aside from the added trouble you face convincing an upperclassman to take a redshirt without his WE going south, the players reacted similarly once RS'd, but have recently had a situation where I was able to watch a soph and a fr with identical WE scores over the course of a RS season with the Fr picking up just 65-70 percent of the point improvement the Soph gained in a season. Like I said, I know there are a lot of variables and the Fr was definitely hindered by starting with a 2.2 gpa out of HS, so maybe that stat alone counts for the bulk of the improvement differential.

My question, though -- all things being equal, if I take Player A and redshirt him in year 1 then give him 12 mpg in year 2....then in a parallel universe take that same player and play him 12 mpg in year 1 and redshirt him in year 2, will I have the same player in both worlds at the conclusion of year 2? Or will one version of the player be at a more advanced stage of his development curve than the other? (and if so, which one?)

my guess would be the player who RS'd as a sophomore would grow more because he'd gain WE points as a freshmen. but i doubt it would make a huge difference

The amount of remaining growth plays a role as well.  Someone on the forums (maybe 'kujayhawk'?) said something to the effect of the first and last 20% of growth in a category is the slowest where the middle 60% happens much quicker.  (I don't remember the exact numbers, so using 20% as an example).  But this could explain what you've observed-a sophomore growing faster than a freshman.  So if an incoming freshman had a bunch of high/highs, he would hit his stride in growth starting around sophomore year.  Just a thought...

IF you slap a RS on a guy freshman year and he refuses, will he definitely go down to 1 WE if you do it in his sophmore year or is there a chance he accepts it?

Posted by aperi on 2/7/2013 8:35:00 PM (view original):
IF you slap a RS on a guy freshman year and he refuses, will he definitely go down to 1 WE if you do it in his sophmore year or is there a chance he accepts it?

He may accept it but it gets tougher with each season

red, I've wondered about that myself.  Never done any real investigating into it, but I do have one observation.

It seems to me like players have a baseline expectation for PT that plays a role in development, and the baseline does depend on class.  So hypothetically a Soph expects 10mpg and gets 15.  He might improve more than an identical JR player getting 15mpg who expects 15.  Don't really know how true that is, just throwing the idea out there.

As an aside, I've thought at times that FR expectations might be out of whack.  Guys who should be expecting little to no PT don't seem to improve as much as I'd expect with 10-15mpg.