Have a recruit with high ceiling but low WE and is starting a bit below average. Ideally I would like to play him a ton his freshman year to boost his WE then redshirt him his sophomore year. My question is if I place the redshirt on him his freshman year and he accepts it, does that mean he will accept it his sophomore year if I take it off for him to play his freshman year? Kind of a weird question...didnt know if anyone had this come up before.

I've had mixed luck at best with sophomore RSs. I stopped planning it into my recruiting because it is totally hit or miss.

Agreed. I don't know of a way to have certainty on any player in regards to redshirting. Other than trying it.

I have redshirted 10x as many sophomores as I have freshmen in my career. But that's mainly because I offer basically every single recruiting target some sort of promises. I also don't redshirt a lot at all to begin with (in D2 I played mostly press so I want my 12 players. In D1 I play very little press. But because of dice rolls and aiming high, i never end up with 11 or 12 players and I'm usually forced to use all my players whether it's 8 9 or 10 on the roster)

Willing to RS as a freshman is not a slam dunk that he will take a soph RS. I think the game logic is based on the rest of your roster. I've had good luck getting the soph RS when there are two players on his roster at his same position that are better than him and ideally no one worse. I think its mostly done by overall but the game does consider what the players "best" position is so you cant game it by switching around everyones assigned positions.

The start-as-a-freshman, RS as a soph is a great player development tool for low WE, high potential guys. You just have to be willing to accept there is a chance he will reject your offer which usually results in an overcrowded depth chart at one position but generally isnt the end of the world.