Dumb. Redshirting is the main reason people are quitting their teams mid-season.
The average college student takes 5 years to graduate nowadays. Give athletes 5 to play 5.
I don't disagree with your position, but in addition to the litigation (which I'm not sure what all that entails and why it would impact this rule), I wonder whether they saw all the high schools recruits that would be left out and didn't want to do that. I mean, it already happened with COVID, and with all the eligibility waivers I'm not sure how much a blanket waiver would matter at this point, but based on us supposedly dropping high school recruits in anticipation, maybe they were concerned about it.
ETA: I also wonder if the 5 to play 5 along with JUCO years potentially not counting against eligibility causes a lot more prospects to move to JUCO and hope to improve their bargaining position for NIL. Could be potentially headed towards a place like college hockey, where a lot of players spend a year or two after high school playing junior hockey hoping to make a team after another year or two of development. If there is big NIL money available, players that can't get blue chip money out of high school may want to spend a year or two maturing to maximize their NIL value for college to make sure they make some good money before taking their shot at the pros.
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