Lately I have seen alot of players who I think played at one college for 4 years and then transferred and still can play additional years. Curious, is this due to COVID or can a player play 4 years, graduate, then play elsewhere as a grad student. Anyone know?
Lately I have seen alot of players who I think played at one college for 4 years and then transferred and still can play additional years. Curious, is this due to COVID or can a player play 4 years, graduate, then play elsewhere as a grad student. Anyone know?
It’s a Covid thing. Last year. There’s also redshirts, medical waivers, and mission trips, but those all require not playing for at least a season. Playing all 5 seasons requires one of them to include the Covid year.
For example, Madisen Skinner for Texas is about to play for her 5th year. That’s a Covid exemption.
Most of these are COVID. Anyone that played in the 20-21 academic year was not charged a year of eligibility. Therefore they had the option of playing a "5th year".
Is this the last year that we will have those 5th year players?
No ... but there will be very few in 2025. Players who played as first years in Fall 20/Spring 21 and then redshirted later (usually for medical reasons) will still be able to take a COVID year in 2025. I believe the biggest name eligible for that will be Taylor Landfair, but there are a handful more.
Is this the last year that we will have those 5th year players?
There will still be some next year. The freshmen in 2020-21 didn’t have to count that as year one, so they get four years of play in the next five years. So if they had a redshirt year, they could still play (technically, a sixth year) in 2025-26.