IU Football Redshirt Update: October 29, 2019

Written by Amanda Pavelka (@amandapavelka3)

The redshirt rule adopted in 2018 allows NCAA football players to play in up to four games in a season without using a year of eligibility. Twelve of 19 true freshman have seen field time for Indiana so far this season. Seven of the 12 have exhausted their four game allowance, burning their redshirts. Here are how many games each of Indiana’s true freshman have played. 

As of October 26th, D.K. Bonhomme, David Ellis, Sampson James, Tiawan Mullen, Sean Wracher, Matthew Bedford, and Sio Nofoagatoto’a have all burned their redshirts. Bedford has started in the absence of senior captain and left tackle Coy Cronk, who is also eligible to redshirt, being that his season-ending ankle injury occured in game four against Connecticut. 

So with four games remaining in the regular season, who will Allen redshirt this season? 

“Gary Cooper kind of comes to mind for me,” Allen said in Monday’s press conference, “He's a guy that had an early injury in fall camp, so would love to get him here and use his four games during the last part of the season. So he's one that kind of jumps out. I would say that for several of the guys too.”

Along with Cooper, Larry Tracy III, Beau Robbins and C.J. Person have only seen play time a single game each this season. Josh Sanguinetti played in two games early on at safety. 

“The ones that haven't played, at this stage of the game, it's kind of pretty clear who we just said, hey, these guys aren't playing. They've already played their four. But those who haven't used their four yet, you wouldn't want to burn anybody's redshirt with more than four if something happens we don't expect,” Allen said.

With the talented depth at wide receiver, Jordan Jakes has yet to step foot on the field. Same with offensive linemen Mike Katic and Tim Weaver. Beau Robbins and Jeramy Passmore join Antoine Whitner Jr. as defensive linemen in the 2019 signing class. 

“If guy has not played his four up to this point, we're going to strategically make sure we balance it out the rest of the year between these last few games and the bowl game to maximize their experience as freshmen. So that's kind of how we're going to approach that,” Allen said.

Cronk, Cooper, Tracy III, Robbins, Person, Sanguinetti, Jakes, Weaver, Katic, Williams, Brown, Passmore and Whitner Jr. are the possible candidates as of now to take advantage of the redshirt rule.