What are the biggest factors you guys use to determine who you will redshirt? WE? Potential? Playing time?

Is it better to RS a lower WE guy, or start him / give him minutes to hopefully get the WE boost?

Posted by mannytanner on 4/13/2012 11:01:00 AM (view original):
What are the biggest factors you guys use to determine who you will redshirt? WE? Potential? Playing time?

Is it better to RS a lower WE guy, or start him / give him minutes to hopefully get the WE boost?

My first look is to some key areas (defense, stamina, rebounding and low post for bigs, speed and perimeter for guards) -- if I've got a recruit who was high-high potential but had a fairly low start value in one or more of these areas, I'll throw the redshirt at him and dump as many minutes as possible to get that high growth moving.

Assuming nobody falls into that category, I'll next look at the guys that have the most high-high potentials that I signed. These are the guys that can grow into monster players for me and whenever possible, I'd like to have them for two seasons in monster form. If I have someone that fits this category and I don't think they're essential to my success for that season, they get my next nod in the redshirt sweepstakes.

Barring that, I look for players who start F/F in off/def IQ  and throw it on one of them just to raise the IQ's to C+ range for when they start playing.

Thanks red.

Is it better to play the guy I want to RS in the exhibition games, then RS him before the real season starts? Or does it not make a difference if I RS him prior to the first exhibition game?

I think you have to look at the team building aspect, too.

For instance, if you're deciding between a guard and a big, what does the rest of your roster look like? Do you have a bunch of veteran guards or bigs? A bunch of young ones? Is this guy a 3pt shooter and you don't have any other young ones and will need him. Etc. etc. etc. This is often a major part of my decision making process.

Other than that, I'd redshirt the absolute best player who will take it. Better to have the best possible guy for five seasons. (And how you define "best" is up to you ...)

I also think it's reasonable to look at guys who have a lot to gain, ratings-wise. But ultimately I think that wraps neatly into "redshirt best possible player", as really the best possible indicates the projection of what they'll ultimately look like.

There are really a bunch of different ways to look at it.  Red definitely makes some good points.  

Another thing to consider is depth chart.  If he's not going to get many minutes vs. another frosh who plays a position with a short rotation, it'd make sense to redshirt him. 

I think the gains are minimal, but there's no reason not to play him in exhibition.

I say go ahead and play the kid you want to RS in the exhibition games -- you might get an extra point or two of development from the PT. The only real risk that I can see is if you can't log in during that short window between second exhibition game and the first regular season game and he winds up playing because you didn't get online in time to slap the redshirt on.