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Questions about Patriot League rules (redshirts, etc.)

Gallipoli

Gallipoli

Graduate Assistant
Aug 20, 2017
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The Doghouse
I changed the topic of this thread to focus on additional questions.

On page 31, at Par 7.4(e) of the Patriot League policy manual expressly prohibits the use of Athletic redshirts. Exceptions to this rule do not seem to exist. Am I reading this correctly?
Does this mean our student athletes who have a redshirt will lose their eligibility?

2024-25 Patriot League Policy and Procedures Manual (8.15.2024) (PDF) - Patriot League

patriotleague.org patriotleague.org
 
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That’s the policy for this current academic/athletic year. I think next year’s policy isn’t officially out yet. Original JOC article referenced redshirting saying,

“Richmond will continue with 63 scholarships and will keep redshirting players, said Huesman.”

I imagine this is something we discussed before making the move to PL for football as non-medical redshirting is something we heavily rely on.

richmond.com

Richmond Spiders see 'great fit,' shift from CAA Football to Patriot League

Puzzling and disappointing to UR in the last few years has been CAA Football’s expansion strategy.
richmond.com richmond.com
 
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spiderstudent17 said:
That’s the policy for this current academic/athletic year. I think next year’s policy isn’t officially out yet. Original JOC article referenced redshirting saying,

“Richmond will continue with 63 scholarships and will keep redshirting players, said Huesman.”

I imagine this is something we discussed before making the move to PL for football as non-medical redshirting is something we heavily rely on.

richmond.com

Richmond Spiders see 'great fit,' shift from CAA Football to Patriot League

Puzzling and disappointing to UR in the last few years has been CAA Football’s expansion strategy.
richmond.com richmond.com
Click to expand...

That’s not a direct quote. Interpretation by JOC. In fact I think instead of “will keep” he should have said “wants to keep” redshirting.

I’d like to have more direct clarity from UR and/or Pat League. It was asked by JOC in original presser but ignored. The answer we got was more philosophizing not that non med redshirting was allowed.

Think this part from different article goes into it a little deeper…

Heppel said the Patriot League does have fifth-year players. That supports Richmond’s desire to redshirt mostly younger Spiders on a regular basis. “Richmond was obviously comfortable with our approach,” she said.

UR coach Russ Huesman made it clear Tuesday that redshirting is a major component of Richmond’s program.

“Recruiting high school players, redshirting them, developing them, bringing them back for their fifth years, all of those things are extremely important here, and we want to continue to do that,” Huesman said.

richmond.com

Patriot League Commissioner addresses UR addition, expansion, scholarships, etc.

"Conversations between the Patriot League and William & Mary have been going on for decades."
richmond.com richmond.com

Clearly our desire. And Pat League does have 5th years. tho a little disingenuous by commish to say that if they only come from medical or exceptions not normal athletic development ones.

Honestly I thought they already allowed regular redshirting but bylaws explicitly say otherwise. Also Heppel comment re “comfortable with our approach” implies the Pat League approach was different than what we’re used to.

Maybe bylaws r changing as I agree I’m sure it was discussed. It’s clear what we desire. But I’m skeptical we can operate exactly as we want re: shirts. Idk. It deserves more explanation. Also, how we adhere to the league’s Academic Index stuff is a separate concern too.
 
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It was discussed on the Lehigh forum. One has to admit, the Lehigh fans are smart. We wouldn't get this level of thought from a JMU fan.

I don’t pretend to know that much about the redshirt rules, other than it allows a student athlete to postpone his four years of eligibility to gain strength and experience as a member of the team. We do it all the time in wrestling.

My very rough count of our football roster shows we have 5 fifth year players, and of course no players listed as having red shirt eligibility. Based on those listed on Richmond’s roster as red shirts, they have 6 fifth year seniors, 16 fourth year juniors, 15 third year sophs, and 19 second year freshmen. They red shirt more than half their roster. Those numbers (plus Richmond being very good) gets us to easily be 10 to 12 point under dogs. Win this and Coach Cahill should be in the running for FCS coach of the year, if he isn’t already.

Going forward it’ll be interesting to see how many of our current freshman class take this as a red shirt year.

 
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In fact, I will go a step further. This is the financial reason for switching to the Patriot. President Hallock saw this as an opportunity to cut costs. He saw this as a cost cutting move. If this is true he and his administration have lied to everyone.

Nothing else makes sense.
 
Gallipoli said:
The published policy says otherwise. The rule is clear cut. Why would they waive a rule for for UR, which hurts the rest of the league?
Click to expand...
Maybe changing the league rule since ours makes more sense and allows for better player development.
 
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Gallipoli said:
In fact, I will go a step further. This is the financial reason for switching to the Patriot. President Hallock saw this as an opportunity to cut costs. He saw this as a cost cutting move. If this is true he and his administration have lied to everyone.

Nothing else makes sense.
Click to expand...
That's not what the man said. Why do you stir the pot? If it was strictly a cost cutting move we would have stayed put. It's a bus ride to Campbell, NCAT, Elon, Towson, W&M and Hampton. We obviously weren't playing the northern schools on a consistent basis and therein lies the problem. You see what a diet of that bunch gets you.
 
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urfan1 said:
Have you spoken to anyone in the administration about this? i have, and I was assured we can continue to redshirt.
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Has there been an official policy change? Why would the rest of the league make a concession to UR that places the rest of the schools at a disadvantage?

Verbal assurances in negotiations are not valid, unless they are accompanied by written policy changes, or at least written statements. These are fair questions.
 
The UR model for Redshirting makes the most sense and is best for the team and the players.
I cannot imagine that there was not some type of written agreement or change to the existing policy
before UR committed to the league change. I am curious to how often the transfer portal is used
by the PL? Is it mostly Ivy League grad transfers or all over the place.
 
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Gallipoli said:
Has there been an official policy change? Why would the rest of the league make a concession to UR that places the rest of the schools at a disadvantage?

Verbal assurances in negotiations are not valid, unless they are accompanied by written policy changes, or at least written statements. These are fair questions.
Click to expand...
The policy you shared was for this academic/athletic year. It appears that it will likely change for the 2025-2026 year.
 
Gallipoli said:
Has there been an official policy change? Why would the rest of the league make a concession to UR that places the rest of the schools at a disadvantage?

Verbal assurances in negotiations are not valid, unless they are accompanied by written policy changes, or at least written statements. These are fair questions.
Click to expand...
I can understand your concern, but I can only share what I have done at this point.
 
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It appears that graduate transfers in football are forbidden in the Patriot League. Why is this the case? Will this rule change when UR enters the league?
 
It seems that UR could be facing a deficit, if we lose players and cannot replace them. If we do have to replace them, will we forced to take inferior or unprepared players?
 
There are the same number of eligible college players. Just reshuffling the deck. Yes, it sucks, but we have to play the hand dealt and not the one we would want.

With FBS rosters capped at 105, there will be plenty of FBS players moving to FCS. Select wisely and we will be ok. Not as if the Spiders are facing headwinds different from every other FCS program.
 
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Eight Legger said:
It won't.
Click to expand...

I've heard the Pat League teams football admissions align a little more closely to regular student admission as stipulated by the Academic Index, more than it does at UR. But it might not be a big gap idk. And possibly hard to regulate anyway. I'm no expert on what goes into the Academic Index exactly. Question for SF.
 
Academic Index... per Google...

The Academic Index (AI) is a numerical score that admissions officers use to assess a student's academic qualifications for admission to selective colleges, including Ivy League schools. The AI is calculated from a student's GPA, class rank, and SAT or ACT scores, and is used to help admissions officers quickly decide which students to consider for admission.


The AI is calculated by weighting each of these components on a scale of 80, and then adding the scores together to get a total AI between 60 and 240. The AI is then assigned a rank or tier, which varies by school, but is usually between 1 (lowest) and 9 (highest).


The AI was originally created to ensure that student-athletes were close enough to the average non-athlete applicant to be admitted. However, the formula has been modified over time to make the process more streamlined. The current formula adds together a student's highest SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing score and Math score (or converted ACT) and their Converted GPA Score (CGS).


The AI is an important factor in the admissions process, but it's not the only one. Each college classifies AI scores differently, and the admissions process for student athletes can vary from school to school.
 
Would expect our AD already knows the answers to the questions/concerns raised. Definitive answers have not been made public though.

The concerns are basic issues that should have been raised and responses vetted relative to impact on current Spider program before we made the conference leap. Hopefully, we did our due diligence, if not, inclined to move from OK with the conference move to WTF.
 
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This information was on a need to know basis and, unless you are a big donor, you don't need to know. (BTW,clueless I am)
 
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