Matt Rhule addresses redshirt conversations he expects to have with Nebraska players

Now past Week 4 of the college football season, many coaches are weighing decisions about whether to redshirt players at this point. They can play in up to four games in a season while still maintaining a redshirt.

Play a fifth game, though, and you burn one of your years of eligibility. It’s a tight spot for coaches and players alike, especially because a changing NCAA landscape could flip the table in the coming months or years.

“Yeah, it’s really hard,” Nebraska coach Matt Rhule said. “It’s really difficult right now because they’re telling me, ‘Hey, we think 5-for-5 is going to pass later in the year,’ so it’s like what do I do? You know what I’m saying? What do I do?”

The 5-for-5 Rhule referenced is potential legislation to allow all players to compete in five seasons worth of competition across five years. Currently, players can only compete in four seasons across five years.

There’s been a large push in legal avenues to get the NCAA to recognize that athletes should have five years eligibility. But for now, that remains in limbo.

“If it doesn’t pass now, it’s going to pass (later)…” Rhule said. “I don’t know if it behooves a young man right now to redshirt, honestly. If someone wants to do it I certainly will talk to them about it. But I think if it doesn’t pass now it’s going to pass next year or the year after and it’s going to be retroactive.

“Guys last year that I worked my tail off to make sure they could redshirt, they’re going to be sitting there like, ‘Man I wasted a year, I could have played in four or five more games.'”

More often than not, players want to play. There are unique circumstances here and there that might lead a player to want to redshirt, but for the most part players don’t go to college to sit the bench.

“So it’s a really tough spot to be in, to be honest with you, like for a player,” Rhule said. “Take me out of it, like for a player or a parent when we got word the other day, ‘Hey, we really believe it’s going to pass,’ but it hasn’t passed yet. How do you do it? How do you prepare?

“When I first got here they were like, ‘Hey, there’s this lawsuit in the courts, House something, and it’s going to come to fruition at some point.’ Being like, ‘Do you think that will ever really happen?’ and then all the sudden BANG, and then you have to manage it while it’s kind of on top of you. That’s how I feel about the 5-for-5.”

For his part, Rhule just wants to make sure he’s doing right by players as he weighs the redshirt conversation. That said, he envisions the discussions being easier than most might anticipate.

That’s because he recruited these guys. He knows how eager they are to suit up.

“I’m always going to try my best to help the players and put them first, but I think the quality of kid that we’ve recruited in terms of the competitors, like they want to play,” Rhule said. “There’s not a lot of guys coming in here right now saying, ‘I don’t want to play.’ Like, ‘I want to play.’ I’m telling our guys you can be a really good player and maybe not be playing a lot because there’s someone really good in front of you, maybe a little older than you. But no one’s coming to save you, man, you’ve got to fight for what you want.

“You see Cortez Mills gets in the game in two-minute at the end of the drive and just runs his route, gets open and catches the ball. He’s just a competitor.”

There are dozens of others like him at Nebraska. At the end of the day, Rhule’s just trying to project what’s best for his players. It may not be taking a redshirt.

“I think they’ll pass 5-for-5 at some point, but again, I’m sitting here waiting on it,” he said. “Lucky to have (athletics director) Troy (Dannen), he’s so in the know. But I don’t know if it will behoove guys.”