Senior school football players who want to play the game in college in many cases are met with unfamiliar terms once they become involved in the college football recruiting process. Specifically, they’ll often hear of the “redshirt,” along with the “grayshirt” and “greenshirt” – terms that reference player recruiting and player development strategies employed by many colleges in recruiting for football.
NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) rules allow a college football player five years to accomplish his four seasons of eligibility. That fifth year in which the player doesn’t compete on the field, although he practices and receives his scholarship just as any player on a basketball scholarship, is named the redshirt year. ทีเด็ดบอลชุด Usually, new recruits are redshirted their freshman year since they tend to need more hours to produce as college players who are able to contribute to the success of the team. A freshman player who plays in games during his first year on campus (he isn’t redshirted) can have only three additional years to play, but a freshman who doesn’t play in games during his first year in college (he’s redshirted) will still have four more years of playing eligibility from then on first year.
A high school player receives a greenshirt or is “greenshirted” when he graduates early from high school and thereby forgoes his spring semester there so that he can enroll in college for that semester. Almost unheard of until recent years, the greenshirt allows high school players to participate in spring practice along with his college team, develop his football skills and comprehension of the team’s system during the spring and summer, and possibly begin playing in games these fall. This technique gives a new player and the college team an early on begin preparing to play football in college, but comes at the cost of leaving high school early, that might or might not be the very best long-term strategy for a student.
A new player gets a grayshirt or is “grayshirted” when he signs a letter of intent on signing day in February, but doesn’t enter college full-time before following spring rather than the following fall. He doesn’t receive a scholarship, practice with the team, or take a full-time load of college courses until his spring enrollment. Grayshirting a new player allows a college to sign a new player, but delay his play in games for another year. In effect, grayshirting gives a new player another year of practice before play, considering that the NCAA-mandated five-year eligibility period doesn’t begin until students is enrolled full-time. College programs which have already awarded near the utmost number allowed under NCAA rules are forced to sign a tiny recruiting class, and they are most interested in players that are ready to grayshirt.