Dabo Swinney believes five-year eligibility rules would ‘clean up’ college football

As the NCAA works through multiple eligibility lawsuits, one in particular would transform the rules. Filed by a group of athletes, including Vanderbilt’s Langston Patterson, seeks to allow athletes to have five years of eligibility rather than the current rule of four seasons across five years.

To Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney, such a move would help “clean up” the landscape. He particularly pointed out the impact of the current college football redshirt rules in the player movement era.

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Swinney voiced his support for athletes to have five years of eligibility, particularly post-House settlement. With roster limits in place, he said it’ll be even more important to avoid what he called “self-redshirting” and losing those spots.

“I think it would be great for a lot of reasons,” Swinney told reporters Tuesday. “I think it would clean up a lot of the medical waiver, all that stuff. But I also think it would clean up an unintended consequence. When they put in the four games in for the redshirt deal – you could play four and still redshirt – that was a positive. Everybody loved that. But now with the world we’re in, especially with rosters being lessened, all of a sudden – it’s not their fault. It’s just the system, the way it is.

“Now, all of a sudden, you’ve got a bunch of kids that are going to self-redshirt themselves after four games if they’re not playing or where they are. You’ve got agents involved. There’s a lot of stuff.”

Dabo Swinney: ‘Self-redshirting’ creates ‘bad blood’

The idea of “self-redshirting” took center stage last season when former UNLV quarterback Matthew Sluka announced he would preserve his redshirt after four games due to an NIL dispute with the school. Former USC defensive lineman Bear Alexander also preserved his redshirt last year.

By instituting a five-year eligibility rule, Dabo Swinney predicted such situations wouldn’t occur. Players would instead play out the year.

“You get 10, 11, 12 guys that self-redshirt themselves to save a year, first of all, it’s not good for the game,” Swinney said. “It’s not what it was intended to be. And I don’t think it’s good for the player. Whereas, if you just [do] the 5-for-5, it’d just clean all that up. Because even if they knew they were leaving, they’d still play in whatever role they would and finish.

“It just creates bad blood. I just don’t think that stuff’s necessary. I think the 5-for-5 would clean it all up. That’s just my opinion.”

The lawsuit filed by Langston Patterson and the other athletes argues the “redshirt rule,” when combined with the NCAA’s four seasons of competition rule, serves to act as an anticompetitive device rather than as a reasonable eligibility boundary. According to the suit, the current policy hinders athletes’ market values.