Non-Letterman Players

[OldSchoolBoy75]

I need some help on a simple question. Do non-letterman players on a college football team ever get any playing time during a game? As a Michigan Wolverine fan, I look at the rosters of the teams from the 1970's at a website devoted to the team's yearly history and notice this on the list of players. In fact, some of them are non-lettermen all four years. I also notice that a considerable number of them are White.

 

[Jimmy Chitwood]

to answer your question, no. a non-letterman has not ever received any signigifcant playing time. however, a non-letterman CAN become a letterman at any point in his career.

by definition, a player earns a "letter" by playing a certain number of plays in a given season, which in turn earns him the title of "letterman."

for example, a player doesn't earn a letter if he is in a red-shirt year. he can, of course, earn a letter by getting into the rotation. most non-lettermen are either walk-ons or players who are red-shirting.

i hope that helps.

and yes, a disproportionate number of walk-ons are white.

 

[OldSchoolBoy75]

Thanks Jimmy. The reason I ask this is because I noticed that there were certain players who didn't receive a letter in any of his four years with the team. I would assume that would be frustrating and would cause him to leave the team entirely.

 

[Jimmy Chitwood]

glad to help.

the most likely scenario for a player who didn't letter in any of his four years is that he was a walk-on who simply stuck it out for his love of the game and love of his school.

it is rare that scholarship players will stick around with one school for four years if they aren't getting any playing time at all.

 

[OldSchoolBoy75]

Jimmy, thanks for all your knowledge to this pertinent question. I love to read about the history of the Wolverines, especially from the 1970's. One player had this distinction of being a non-letterman all four years. A shame because I think he would've been a terrific player on the gridiron.Edited by: OldSchoolBoy75

 

[SteveB]

To earn a letter, you have to play in a game for a certain number of plays (6 or 8 I believe). I was a former walk-on player and was able to earn 2 varsity letters at Texas A&M, mainly as a special teams player.

Most of my fellow walk-ons never earned a letter, but there are a lot of nice benefits to being a walk-on at a big program. If your school is a perennial bowl team, you get to go to the bowl game and participate in all of the pre-game festivities (banquets, tours of the local sites, partying at the top clubs in the bowl cities). You also get all of the bowl goodies (watches, jackets, etc). If your team wins a conference championship, you get a championship ring.

You also get the benefits of having an athletic counselor that can set your class schedule, so you don't have to worry about registration and not being able to get the classes that you want. Along those lines, you get all of the benefits of other athletes such as use of training facilities, tutoring, dedicated computer labs, etc.

For me, the biggest motivation as a walk-on was the competition in practice. I got to go one-on-one with some of the best receivers in college football on a daily basis. You got to see how you measured up with them. Having said that, most walk-ons are treated like crap by the coaches and put up with a lot. Edited by: SteveB

 

[OldSchoolBoy75]

Steve, thanks for your info! I'm a real dunce when it comes to letters and whatnot, but what is the difference between varsity and junior varisty in the college game? I thought that Varsity and Jayvee were just for high schools.

 

[SteveB]

Steve, thanks for your info! I'm a real dunce when it comes to letters and whatnot, but what is the difference between varsity and junior varisty in the college game? I thought that Varsity and Jayvee were just for high schools.

Actually, varsity is a term from a by-gone era. Years ago, before the days of redshirting and scholarship limits, freshmen that didn't play on varsity, played on a freshman team that would play other freshman college teams. Therefore, you could be a freshman, that played in games (non-varsity games), but didn't earn a "varsity" letter.

If you look back at the days before scholarship limits, powerhouse programs such as Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Michigan, Notre Dame, etc, might have well over 100 scholarship players. There were very few walk-ons back then, so they formed the freshmen teams, so that they would get playing time. The main reason these schools recruited so many players is that they kept the players from going to another school. This is the reason that you saw so many dynasty programs in those days.Edited by: SteveB

 

[OldSchoolBoy75]

Actually, varsity is a term from a by-gone era. Years ago, before the days of redshirting and scholarship limits, freshmen that didn't play on varsity, played on a freshman team that would play other freshman college teams. Therefore, you could be a freshman, that played in games (non-varsity games), but didn't earn a "varsity" letter.

If you look back at the days before scholarship limits, powerhouse programs such as Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Michigan, Notre Dame, etc, might have well over 100 scholarship players. There were very few walk-ons back then, so they formed the freshmen teams, so that they would get playing time. The main reason these schools recruited so many players is that they kept the players from going to another school. This is the reason that you saw so many dynasty programs in those days.

This definitely explains a lot! Thanks so much. I think a lot of us take so much for granted in college football these days that we don't know what it was like before the '90s. Redshirting existed as recent as the late '70s but probably not to the extent that it is today, where it seems that every big-name player is a redshirt.

You're right about the days of the college football dynasties. Luckily I was old enough to live during a time when dynasties still meant a lot in the NFL and college football. You had teams that you loved to hate, and see lose! LOL!

 

[OldSchoolBoy75]

On a related note, here's a question I'm curious about regarding football players who redshirt. Since they are officially with the football team for five years (at least that's usually the case), are they students at that university/college for five years? Are their courses spread out so it equals to four year's worth of education or if they graduated in their fourth year (junior year in football) do they spend their senior year of football just playing for the team but no longer needing to attend classes?

 

[SteveB]

On a related note, here's a question I'm curious about regarding football players who redshirt. Since they are officially with the football team for five years (at least that's usually the case), are they students at that university/college for five years? Are their courses spread out so it equals to four year's worth of education or if they graduated in their fourth year (junior year in football) do they spend their senior year of football just playing for the team but no longer needing to attend classes?

Yes, typically during the football season, players take a lighter load of classwork due to the amount of time football takes from class. During the season, players take classes in the morning and do weight training, film study, and practice in the afternoon. Players that want to graduate in 4 years will make up the hours in the Spring and Summer. Otherwise, they will take five years to work towards their degree. If a player completes the coursework for a degree in 4 years, they will take graduate courses in their 5th year to continue playing football.

 

[Electric Slide]

On a related note, here's a question I'm curious about regarding football players who redshirt. Since they are officially with the football team for five years (at least that's usually the case), are they students at that university/college for five years? Are their courses spread out so it equals to four year's worth of education or if they graduated in their fourth year (junior year in football) do they spend their senior year of football just playing for the team but no longer needing to attend classes?

Oldschool, the academic rules for football apply for all Division 1 sports as well. Every quarter/semester (term) you must be enrolled for at least 12 credit hours to compete. Up to two times an athlete can use 2 varsity credit hours, which basically means you can be only taking 10 credit hours of classes, and the fact that you play a sport you can count 2 hours for that. You used to be able to use this varsity credit 5 times, but they changed it to 2 in the past few years. In terms of the degree, these can only count towards elective courses.

While 12 hours is the minimum, but by the end of each year an athlete has to accumulate at least 1/5 of the total credit hours needed to graduate. So if someone was only taking 12 hours each term, after one year they would be ineligible to compete until they were caught up to adequate progress towards the degree.

In terms of grade point average, there are two measures, one is the cumulative GPA, the other is the term GPA. For a freshman, their cumulative has to be 1.65 to continue to redshirt, but 1.8 to compete. Second year has to be 1.8 for both, and the remaining years it has to be 2.0 for both. The term average doesn't matter except for obviously the first term, and if you get a 0.0 GPA then you are immediately ineligible for any more competition once the grade is posted, even if the cumulative is still above a 2.0, until the next term when another grade above a 0.0 is posted. This is mainly a problem for seniors in the 4/5th year of eligibility who just stop going to their classes. If a football player did this, they wouldn't be able to compete in the bowl game since it happens after the term ends.

In terms of finishing up, if someone has enough credits to graduate in 4 years but still has one year of eligibility remaining, they can either add a minor and keep taking courses, or graduate and take graduate classes, I think 10 hours is the minimum per term if they are taking graduate classes. Lastly for undergradutes, the only exception to the 12 hour rule is for the final term of eligibility, the athlete only needs to take the necessary courses to graduate. That's why Matt Leinhert so famously only took ballroom dancing, because it was his last semester. This rule is so the athlete isn't taking unnecessary courses that they don't need to graduate.

Lastly, as I'm sure many people are familiar with, Division 1 is the only division where a clock is involved. Whenever anyone enrolls for the first time in at least a 2 year acredited college, a 5 year clock begins where they have a total of 4 years to compete. The clock keeps going even if someone doesn't attend or goes below 12 hours, in addition to the fact that it would be much harder to get back on progress to graduate in 5 years if someone did stay out of school for a term. I believe in Division 2 and 3, it's not based on a clock but total semesters/quarters in college. That's why in 2 and 3 someone can go to school for a year, not return for their second year and come back 10 years later and still compete. In Division 1 their eligibility would expire even though they weren't going to school.

I know this is complicated, and believe me a lot of athletes had trouble understanding this as well, especially ones that transferred or stayed out of school for a semster. Of course, if you stay in school taking 15 hours every term and get a C or better, you will never have to worry about this! Edited by: Electric Slide