As a general rule, I only inform of a redshirt if I don’t want the player on the team unless he redshirts. I don’t know of anything you can do to negate the hit for a player that’s going to drop you off the considering list. If he wants to play, you can forget it, from what I’ve seen. I don’t recall ever specifically informing a juco of a redshirt when he didn’t have “wants to play” preference, so that may be possible.