For incoming players, do you generally redshirt your:

1) biggest project with the most potential
2) best player that will take a redshirt (e.g. no starts or minutes promises)
3) who redshirts at DI in 3.0?

I intend to redshirt players who won't play a significant role their 1st season but have plenty of potential. To me, that seems the way to go.

If a guy will play, and you hope to reach the NT, makes no sense to RS him.
If a guy won't play, but won't benefit much from a RS, makes no sense to want him as a 5th year SR. He should max out well before then.

I'm still figuring this out as I'm relatively new to DI, but my current thinking is that it's a combination of #1 and #2, essentially the best player who would benefit from the extra season in order to reach their full potential. As such, I would generally target the player with the highest potential (sort of the player that has the potential to be the best player) that is furthest away from being able to reach it, factoring in that low WE players might not benefit much from it, while high WE players might not need it. The other thing to consider is that you don't want to redshirt someone who you might not get the benefit of that extra year due to them going EE. I'd be curious to see what folks who have actually had success at DI have to say about this topic, though, since I have no history to support that this is actually a good DI strategy.

"The other thing to consider is that you don't want to redshirt someone who you might not get the benefit of that extra year due to them going EE. "


This is my main consideration. In D2 and D3, I try to RS scorers but in D1, the good scorers get drafted. It's hard(er) to get drafted if you don't have aan 80+ Per or LP so I tend to red shirt the high potential role players who will get the most benefit of an A+ IQ.

No one that is EE caliber is going to take a redshirt

Posted by mullycj on 1/11/2018 2:17:00 PM (view original):
No one that is EE caliber is going to take a redshirt

I was literally about to say this.

Unless you are A+ and everyone is afraid to battle you, you will most likely need to offer promises to even sign a guy who is EE quality.

Posted by MikeT23 on 1/11/2018 12:59:00 PM (view original):
I intend to redshirt players who won't play a significant role their 1st season but have plenty of potential. To me, that seems the way to go.

If a guy will play, and you hope to reach the NT, makes no sense to RS him.
If a guy won't play, but won't benefit much from a RS, makes no sense to want him as a 5th year SR. He should max out well before then.

This is my approach too.

Very rarely do I redshirt at DI. Seriously thinking about it for Colorado next year though.

Is it because of walk-ons? Just reading the boards, it seems like most D1 schools have a walk-on or two.

In general, redshirt the guy you want for a fifth year. So it the player who will be the best or most needed by the time they graduate. There are other things to consider. Who can you afford to redshirt? If you are between a pg and pf and you have 2 pgs ahead of the freshman and only 1 pf ahead of that freshman redshirt the pg. All else equal redshirt a guard over a big. Another thing to think about. I knew my Georgia tech team was rebuilding this year. I only had 1 senior and he had all red potentials left. He is a good big who will help me next year who won't leave to go pro so I redshirted him. work ethic drops to 1 but now I get a solid big back in a year I should be much better. Other advantage to this is you still get his recruiting resources and will get them next year also. This is huge at d1, not as much d2 or d3.

Take this guy as a case study:
https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/PlayerProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=0&pid=3807229

The question is now moot because I switched jobs, but I was considering whether or not I wanted to try to redshirt him as a sophomore before I made the switch. I made promises to sign him as a freshman, but thought it was possible he might accept a redshirt as a sophomore as his stats still weren't great (though much better than most of my team, so maybe he wouldn't have, but who knows). For those who have had some experience with this, when, if ever, do you think he might have gone Pro?

His potentials project to be the following, with a WE of 91:
Ath: 100
Spd: 99-100
Reb: 7-10
Def: 100
Blk: 4-7
LP: 49-53
Per: 79-100
BH: 100
P: 59-61
St: 92
Du: 79
FT: B-

Posted by piman314 on 1/11/2018 8:54:00 PM (view original):
In general, redshirt the guy you want for a fifth year. So it the player who will be the best or most needed by the time they graduate. There are other things to consider. Who can you afford to redshirt? If you are between a pg and pf and you have 2 pgs ahead of the freshman and only 1 pf ahead of that freshman redshirt the pg. All else equal redshirt a guard over a big. Another thing to think about. I knew my Georgia tech team was rebuilding this year. I only had 1 senior and he had all red potentials left. He is a good big who will help me next year who won't leave to go pro so I redshirted him. work ethic drops to 1 but now I get a solid big back in a year I should be much better. Other advantage to this is you still get his recruiting resources and will get them next year also. This is huge at d1, not as much d2 or d3.

If his WE drops to 1, how does he not leave? I thought if you redshirt a guy and he's so mad that his WE drops significantly (i think i was told over 10 poonts was the mark), he will leave your school. Is that not correct?

Posted by MikeT23 on 1/11/2018 3:23:00 PM (view original):
Is it because of walk-ons? Just reading the boards, it seems like most D1 schools have a walk-on or two.

Yeah actually. If I'm going to be taking 3 walkons, I'm not going to play with 8 guys. If I can somehow get 11 scholarship players for Colorado, I think I will redshirt.