STARKVILLE — Fans will have trouble finding freshmen on the depth charts for the 2011 Music City Bowl.
The leaders of the Mississippi State and Wake Forest University football teams refer to their programs as “developmental” entities that encourage 18- and 19-year-olds to begin their college careers doing something they might not have done: Stand on the sideline and watch.
MSU and Wake Forest aren’t alone. It is becoming more common for Division I programs to redshirt a player in his initial year on campus. The move allows a student-athlete to have four more seasons of play and to practice throughout the season with the team as long as he doesn’t play in a game. Redshirts also aren’t likely to be on the team’s travel roster for road games.
Redshirt seasons help student-athletes transition from high school to college, concentrate on academics, or, in some cases, learn a new position.
In a season-opening victory at the University of Memphis on Sept. 1, MSU had 23 players making their debut for the Bulldogs. Most of them had a redshirt season to learn.
Jim Grobe has followed a similar strategy at Wake Forest. His philosophy has helped elevate Wake Forest (6-6) from a perennial bottom-feeder in the Atlantic Coast Conference into a contender.
“We have developmental kids here at Wake Forest, and we’re about giving kids every chance to prove they can play college football at a Bowl Championship Series level while getting a high quality degree once they leave,” Grobe said. “The ready-made guys either physically or academically very rarely consider Wake Forest, and when they do we know they’re a special individual.”
MSU and Wake Forest will put their “developmental” programs on display at 5:40 p.m. Dec. 30 (ESPN) in Nashville.
At the start of Dan Mullen’s tenure as coach at MSU, he had no choice but to play several members of his first recruiting class. He looked at his depth chart and realized certain positions — wide receiver, defensive tackle, and cornerback — were thin in numbers and talent.
“I feel bad for guys like (junior receivers) Chad Bumphis, Brandon Heavens, Chris Smith, and (junior cornerback) Johnthan Banks for not giving them the opportunity to learn how to practice, play, and be ready for the level of the Southeastern Conference,” Mullen said. ‘I tell everybody, I got here and we had no receivers. I mean like none on the roster.”
Two years later, MSU (6-6) is making its first back-to-back bowl appearances in a decade. The Bulldogs accomplished that feat by playing only three freshmen.
Grobe’s success at Wake Forest (6-6) has taken a little longer. Now in his 10th season with the Demon Deacons program, he understands some first-year players might be physically ready to play, but it’s his natural habit to redshirt them to help them adapt to the high academic standards at the school.
According to the 2010 statistics provided by U.S. News, Wake Forest, a private school in Winston-Salem, N.C., accepted 38.4 percent of its 9,050 applicants in the previous academic year. The composite ACT score of the accepted applicants was between 27 to 31. The average high school grade-point average was better than 3.5. These numbers are much higher score than the NCAA minimum required GPA of 2.0 that is tied to a sliding scale on the standardized test scores.
“It’s true most of our kids need to get adjusted, and that means either socially to a smaller school or academically to high class standards or getting them bigger, faster, stronger in the weight room,” Grobe said. “We tell them to have a ball to start with and try to help us in practice however you can.”
According to U.S. News statistics, accepted applicants to MSU average a composite ACT score between 20-27 and around a 3.0 GPA.
Mullen said last week he also redshirts players for the academic purposes.
“We’re similar, as the top academic institution in the state of Mississippi,” Mullen said. “A lot of our deal is based on academics, too, with our players.”
MSU Director of Compliance Bracky Brett said Mullen and coaches at the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi face unique challenges in that classes required to graduate from a Mississippi public high school don’t match the NCAA standards for a prospective student-athlete. As a result, incoming freshmen sometimes need a summer or a year to get the core courses needed to be eligible.
Wake Forest is redshirting most of the 20-player recruiting class it signed last February. Scout.com ranked that class 73rd in the country. It featured nine three-star athletes.
“On the field, we operate on the principle it serves us no use to play a true freshman on the field goal unit or something and waste that year of eligibility,” Grobe said. “Through the September and October months, but once November comes they’re begging our coaching staff to not have their redshirt taken off.”
With a recruiting class ranked higher but still outside the top 40 nationally, Mullen did the same with his first-year players. He did give defensive end P.J. Jones and defensive back Dee Arrington playing time on defense and on special teams.
Earlier this season, Mullen pointed to starting left tackle Blaine Clausell as an example of why student-athletes are redshirted, even in a world where the patience of fans and administrators with college football coaches has gotten shorter.
Since arriving at MSU, Clausell has gone from a 17-year-old who graduated early from Baker High School in Mobile Ala., and being dominated in the spring by defensive end Pernell McPhee to a player who is battling for a starting job in the Southeastern Conference.
“I had to rebuild my confidence because when you’re getting dominated early as a new guy against guys bigger and stronger than you, you worry about yourself,” Clausell said. “I had a low confidence level and actually dropped, too.”
Mullen said the 310-pound left tackle is someone he can rely on at a crucial position for the next three seasons.
“The positive in the future as we continue to build this program is to one day looking out there, scratching you head saying, ‘That Dillon Day and Blaine Clausell have been here forever,’ ” Mullen said. “It takes some time to develop quality players at any position.”
You will see that philosophy Dec. 30 and going forward for both programs.
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