Watching LSU Florida State game and overheard one of the commentators say that one of the players had seven years in college football? I don’t know that much about college sports, but even if you take into account red shirting and the extra COVID time, seven years doesn’t seem like it should be possible.
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Everyone starts with 4 years of eligibility. Add 1 year for normal redshirt. Everyone who was in college in 2020 got 1 extra year of eligibility so that’s 2. Now we’re at 6. A 2nd redshirt year can be granted for medical reasons but it has to be approved by the NCAA I believe. So that’s 7 years. It’s definitely unusual but possible for some players.
4 years of eligibility, 1 COVID year, and 1 standard redshirt year gets you to 6 years. You can also get a medical redshirt to get you up to 7.
Medical redshirts are given if a few conditions are met. 1) you have a season ending injury 2) the injury occurs before the halfway point of the season and 3) you play in fewer than 30% of your teams total games. Theoretically there is no limit to the number of medical redshirts a player can get.
Northern Illinois had a player (Kyle Pugh) had an 8 year college career after getting 2 medical redshirts.
Normally you get 5 years to play 4 seasons. The NCAA decided to not count 2020 towards either, so you have 6 years to play 5 seasons. You can also be granted extra years if you suffer an injury early in the season.
You already normally get 5 years of school to play 4 of them, then you add the fact that everyone’s eligibility got extended 1 year bc covid. Then all it takes is some hardship or medical request that got approved, which gives the 1 more year making it 7.
Medical redshirts likely. If you get hurt and miss a full season or most of a season the NCAA can grant you extra eligibility to make up for it
While not entirely the same, I had 5 years of NCAA eligibility without taking a redshirt year. I did take a 5th year and played a different sport
Enter the athlete with possible 9 years of eligibility
https://www.si.com/college/2022/12/17/oregon-ducks-cam-mccormick-ninth-year-of-eligibility
Basically, for a redshirt you get an extra year but aren’t allowed to play in a game or it counts as a “real” year, and then for severe enough injuries or health reasons you can get years back. I played with someone who played for 7 years bc he was out for 2 seasons due to the same knee injury. NCAA said it was ok and let him play, because he was in post-grad he counted as a current student.
Also they “refunded” a year of eligibility to people who were enrolled and were on the team in 2020 bc COVID.
Here is how:
-Everyone gets at least 4 years of eligibility no matter what.
-Every athlete gets the option of one redshirt. When you get a redshirt, you can only play in a small amount of games, in return you get a 5th year.
-Due to the 2020 Pandemic either shortening or outright canceling seasons, NCAA gave every college athlete who was on a roster in 2020 an extra year. If you played games in 2020, you essentially got a free 6th year.
-If you get a season ending injury that causes you to miss a certain percentage of the season, you could get a medical redshirt, which gives you a makeup year of eligibility. So if you had an elgible injury with proper medical documentation, you could qualify for a 7th year.
In theory, you could get several medical redshirts if you keep getting hurt. There was an Oregon tight end who could have played **NINE!** Years if he wanted to.
He’s trying a hard as he can okay?!?!
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