Gibberish in defense of control

According to Todd Berry, the director of the American Football Coaches Association, while coaches are just wild about the new rule allowing redshirt players to appear in as many as four games in a season without sacrificing their statue, they’re not thrilled with the idea of simply granting student-athletes five years of eligibility.  Why?  Um, well…

“Our coaches have always voted down 5-for-5. Some support it, but the majority want to protect the collegiate model, that it takes four years to graduate,” AFCA executive director Todd Berry said on SiriusXM College Sports Nation.

So Berry sees this new idea as somewhere in between.

“This would allow for young people to preserve that redshirt and work on a master’s,” he said. “Football is a different sport. We don’t have 40 games in a season like baseball or basketball. One year is a precious amount of time to play a great sport and get out what you want. I don’t know that there’s a lot of reasons not to do it. Certainly, the only one I’ve heard is that some other sports might like to do it also. If that’s the case, I think football’s a different sport, and everything can’t be regulated the same.”

I see.  That certainly makes more sense than this.

Earlier this month, the AFCA announced it was proposing to allow players to play in any four games and keep their redshirt — as opposed to fewer games, early in the season, just to be eligible for a “medical” redshirt. Every coach is for the proposal, and why wouldn’t they be? It lets them play more players.

But it still needs to go through the NCAA legislative process. One proposal that has failed in the process before is the idea of “5 for 5,” meaning five years of eligibility, no redshirts. But it’s never made it through, in part because of costs and affects on roster turnover.

Jesus, what a bunch of cheap bastards.