I coach Morehouse in Rockne, and I'm approaching the end of an idea I had for the game about a year ago. I load up two classes in a row and redshirt 12 players over 4 seasons into the class behind them. I used this design to win the Division III championship with Albright in Season 132. Now it's Season 144 and I have 6 players redshirted, 6 more to go, and 29 freshmen. In Season 148, I'll have 12 RS seniors, 29 seniors, and 6 juniors.

I'm looking for some veteran advice on how you'd handle this team over the next 4 seasons if it was yours. How would you allocate formation and practice time? How would you rotate players to maximize growth? Should I make sure the redshirt seniors get more playing time or is it better to spread it out over the starters and some of the back-ups? What kind of offense and defense would you run? Looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts.

I am just glad you will be off my recruiting board for awhile. LOL seemed every time I turned around there you were. As for the question at hand If they are close in talent I definitely think you should rotate around to give everybody playing time to elevate their skills. Make sure your highest WE guys keep their WE up. I would think that RS seniors would have higher FIQ so they would be a higher percentage in the rotation. I like running exclusive nickel on Defense and exclusive I formation on Offense, but that isn't for everyone.

As far as practice time goes, just practice 1 or 2 offensive formations, 1 or 2 defensive formations, and make sure you give your special teams at least as much time as you give each formation. This will help your players' formation IQ's develop quickly.

For handling your players, set all of their fatigue substitution levels at 95, so you get as many players into each game as possible. And substitute players at half-time if you can, so more players get credit for a start. Then after a season or two you be able to see which players you should focus on starting in their JR and SR years.

I really like the idea of stacking up redshirts. The idea has crossed my mind a few times.

I'm not a fan of that many seniors. Players that don't see the field don't contribute, even if they are great players.

When I redshirt anyone but freshmen, I get a huge drop in WE. How in the world did you redshirt more than 3 and not take a hit in WE. Or do you just go with the flow and take the drop?
Otherwise that would be a killer team on FIQ and depending on position depth you could practice 4-4 and dime to get maximum gain for most positions, but that would be determined by depth and what you are willing to run in game.

Sophomores drop about 15% in WE. Usually, if you recruit someone and start them as a freshman and then redshirt them as a sophomore, the net WE gain will be positive. I'm doing this right now with a DB on my team.

Not sure what the rate is with juniors, but it's more.

The only time I ever redshirted a senior, he left anyway. This was a long (GD 1.0) time ago at Division 3.