Quote Originally Posted by irishskillz72 View Post
does a redshirt year count as a "season"? like could he go through 1 redshirt year and 2 regular years and have an 80 overall?
Yup. Redshirting them definitely counts as a season and is always recommended to redshirt them. Unless, of course, you have to use the promise to not redshirt them to get them to come to your school to begin with, then you should wait until year 2 to redshirt them. But, you should always redshirt them as soon as possible. players become viable after just two years (one redshirt and one regular year) and players are normally viable by year 3.


One thing you definitely want to pay attention to, though, is how the players progress. It can tell you quite a bit on how viable of an option they are for your team during their time there. If you get a freshman that starts out at 70 overall, and, after one year, progresses to a 74 overall but then only progresses to a 75 overall after the second year, you're looking at probably only 1 year, maybe 2 years, worth of true viable play from him. Whereas, if you have a freshman that starts out at 70 overall, but consistently jumps up 3-4 points a year, you're looking at him being a viable option (depending on your depth already and the makeup of your team) as early as the beginning of his 3rd season with the team with two more viable years to go (again, depending on the depth of your team and so on).

Overall, it's very much worth keeping track of the improvements your players make during the offseason as it can tell you quite a bit about whether or not you're going to need to replace that guy earlier than you thought you would. I can tell you that my rule of thumb is, unless the guy is a recruit that's starting out in the lower 80s to begin with, if they only improve 1 point during either one of their first two seasons on your team, you're wasting a spot on your roster by keeping them. Because they've already peeked at their full potential as a player and won't be much better than they already are, you're better off to get someone else to try to fill their roster spot.