Georgia Football: New Redshirt rule could be huge for UGA

The NCAA have changed their rule for redshirting players and UGA could benefit.

It’s been a long time in coming. The NCAA has been considering a change to the Red-shirt rule for some time. According to the new rule, players will be allowed to redshirt a year if they only play 4 or less games in a season. This will likely open up opportunities for a lot of students to stay at school for longer than they originally could. In doing so, it will likely allow many student-athletes the chance to get a graduate degree as a part of their scholarship.

That’s the benefit to the players. It will likely dramatically increase the amount of players who stay a full 5 years. There will also be less seasons wasted be early year injuries. From the teams perspective, it will also be huge. It will allow coaches to play freshmen in games and no burn their redshirt.

It could well make the end of the season more interesting. Teams that have done poorly or are missing talent can now play young players. When injuries and other factors take their tole, freshmen will still be able to play and have 4 more years. It won’t effect everyone but it’s hard not to see the benefit to both sides here.

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UGA could well benefit with his 2018 class. It’s loaded with high end talent and a lot of players will only be in Athens for 3 years. But injuries and other factors can’t really be prepared for and so it’s certainly a welcome change. It could also mean that if some well regarded senior gets injured early, they have the chance to come back and boost their draft stock in 2019. Overall, it’s a great rule change and it’s about time it happened.