2019 Fighting Illini Football Scholarship Grid

#1      
2019ScholarshipGrid.png


I've added player eligibility to the grid and factored it into the sort. I think it helps paint a story of recruiting, if you will. I hope you like the change!
 
#4      

Hoppy2105

Little Rock, Arkansas
Awesome job! We will do our best to help keep you updated with commit news.
 
#7      
Awesome job! We will do our best to help keep you updated with commit news.
I appreciate that.
This is fantastic for us, but a giant can of worms for you, lol. Truly a badge of honor. I salute you.
Thanks, Joel. I actually have a hidden column for a depth chart, at least a two deep. But I kept that one out because THAT would be a can of worms. I have a macro to do most of the formatting, and going forward, it should mostly be minor changes. And if you noticed, I'm not getting into the offers like rbachhuber.
 
#9      

Hoppy2105

Little Rock, Arkansas
So Epstein hasn’t taken a redshirt yet? I figured with how much he’d been out these past couple years, he would have redshirted one of them.

Did he play in more than four games last year?
 
#10      
So Epstein hasn’t taken a redshirt yet? I figured with how much he’d been out these past couple years, he would have redshirted one of them.

Did he play in more than four games last year?
Yes, 5 games as a freshman, 7 as a sophomore.
 
#11      

Hoppy2105

Little Rock, Arkansas
Man, if we do somehow get 2 full/healthy years out of Epstein after this injury, it would be magical. Both for him and us. I feel awful for the young man.

This also spreads out the large junior class just a little bit. (If I’m trying to find some silver lining)
 
#12      

Deleted member 4333

D
Guest
I appreciate that.

Thanks, Joel. I actually have a hidden column for a depth chart, at least a two deep. But I kept that one out because THAT would be a can of worms. I have a macro to do most of the formatting, and going forward, it should mostly be minor changes. And if you noticed, I'm not getting into the offers like rbachhuber.

I considered doing a football grid a few times. Way too complicated for my pea brain. Bravo!

Can anybody explain to me what blue shirts and gray shirts are and how they differ from red shirts?
 
#13      

Hoppy2105

Little Rock, Arkansas
I considered doing a football grid a few times. Way too complicated for my pea brain. Bravo!

Can anybody explain to me what blue shirts and gray shirts are and how they differ from red shirts?

I believe blue shirts come to school but don’t get put on scholarship until the next year.

Or maybe that’s grey shirt...
 
#14      

JFGsCoffeeMug

BU:1 Trash cans:0
Chicago
Can anybody explain to me what blue shirts and gray shirts are and how they differ from red shirts?

From the SI mailbag:
From Grant via text: I realize teams have 85 total and 25 initial scholarships. Could you explain what the terms “grayshirt” and “blueshirt” mean to how teams get to those totals?

A few years ago, the concept of grayshirting was somewhat controversial—not because of what it is but because of how it was being used. A grayshirt player delays enrollment by a semester and joins the team during the spring semester of the following year. This allows the program some flexibility when it comes to the 25 initial scholarship players allowed each year by the NCAA.

Let’s say the player signs now and doesn’t enroll until January 2020. He may count against the class of 2019—if, say, a player didn’t qualify academically and the team only wound up using 24 initial counters—or he may count against the class of 2020. This also means the player’s eligibility clock doesn’t begin ticking until 2020. There’s nothing controversial about that. It got weird when coaches would spring the grayshirt option on players within days of signing day, when they might not have a chance to find a non-grayshirt deal elsewhere.

The grayshirting policies of Alabama’s Nick Saban got the most attention because everything Saban does gets a ton of attention. An example of the late notice situation came in 2012 when a defensive line commit from Mobile named Darius Philon was told he needed to take a grayshirt if he still wanted to join the Crimson Tide. Philon had injured a knee in the playoffs late in his senior season, so Saban—knowing Philon probably couldn’t play as a freshman—switched the offer to a grayshirt shortly before signing day. Philon wanted to enroll on scholarship with his class, so he signed instead with Arkansas, where he redshirted. Philon now plays for the Chargers, so it all worked out.

The grayshirt is less controversial now because the early signing period makes it nearly impossible to spring the grayshirt on a player. If the grayshirt option is offered in December, the player still has until February to find a non-grayshirt option. Then he can make an informed decision.

The blueshirt is a lesser-known option that coaches have used lately to help dig their programs out of scholarship holes (usually left by predecessors). When a program needs to take more than 25 players to get its numbers closer to the 85-scholarship maximum, blueshirts often are the only option.

So what is a blueshirt? In NCAA parlance, it’s a non-recruited player. The schools added this classification in case a team had 25 incoming scholarship freshmen and a surefire contributor just came in off the street as a walk-on. It allows the school to place that player on scholarship when practice begins without him counting against the 25.

This exact scenario doesn’t happen very often. The closest thing I can remember to this was when former minor league baseball player Kelly Washington enrolled at Tennessee in 2001 and wowed everyone as a walk-on receiver, but Washington’s high school football coach had been in touch with Tennessee’s defensive backs coach beforehand. (And Washington’s tuition was paid for by the Florida Marlins, so he was in a different situation from a scholarship perspective.) The fact is most programs know exactly who is coming in—even the walk-ons.

The practical application of the blueshirt is to recruit a player without doing any of the things that put him on the books with the NCAA as a recruit. He can come in on an unofficial visit (he or his family pays for travel, lodging and food) but not an official visit (the school pays). The coaching staff can’t make an in-home visit. But the player can enroll with his class and be placed on scholarship on his first day of practice.

Why would a player accept this rather than a regular scholarship? Because he probably doesn’t have any offers at the level of program that is offering him a blueshirt. If he’s got Group of Five offers and a Power 5 school offers a blueshirt, he’s probably going to take it. To him, the process won’t be much different—especially if he lives near the school and can get there easily for unofficial visits—than it will be for his classmates with more conventional offers.
(https://www.si.com/college-football...blueshirt-grayshirt-scholarship-rules-mailbag)
 
#17      
Or to summarize: both allow a school to count the player towards the following year's recruiting total (25 max.), which is why they are used. A grayshirt is sort of the opposite of an early enrollee; instead of enrolling early, he is delaying being on scholarship until the spring semester as part of his NLI. Just like an early enrollee, the grayshirt cannot practice or play in the fall. (In the fall, an early enrollee is usually in high school, a grayshirt is usually part-time or not even on campus.) A blueshirt is just like a redshirt, except the student cannot have been "officially" recruited, meaning no official visits or in-home visits and no NLI. Gray as in a ghost, as if he isn't really there. Blue as in blue balls; he had no recruiting love.
 
#18      

Joel Goodson

respect my decision™
Or to summarize: both allow a school to count the player towards the following year's recruiting total (25 max.), which is why they are used. A grayshirt is sort of the opposite of an early enrollee; instead of enrolling early, he is delaying being on scholarship until the spring semester as part of his NLI. Just like an early enrollee, the grayshirt cannot practice or play in the fall. (In the fall, an early enrollee is usually in high school, a grayshirt is usually part-time or not even on campus.) A blueshirt is just like a redshirt, except the student cannot have been "officially" recruited, meaning no official visits or in-home visits and no NLI. Gray as in a ghost, as if he isn't really there. Blue as in blue balls; he had no recruiting love.

Please consider tacking this explanation onto your grid.
 
#19      
This latest scholarship grid now includes the projected available scholarships per year. It's a crude projection: there is no attempt to factor in likely redshirts and assumes all future scholarships will go to students with four years of eligibility.

2019ScholarshipGrid.png
 
#23      

Hoppy2105

Little Rock, Arkansas
I think I must be reading the grid wrong, you have 4 scholarships projected to be open but I see 7 cells that are blank for 2020.

Could you help explain @ILL_INI ?
 
#24      
I think I must be reading the grid wrong, you have 4 scholarships projected to be open but I see 7 cells that are blank for 2020.

Could you help explain @ILL_INI ?
Sure. There are a total of 85 scholarships available, fully allocated in 2019. There are actually 8, not 7, blank cells, plus 4 "Available redshirt" cells to include for a total of 12 players leaving. (At this point in the season, I don't believe any of the seniors actually have the redshirt available anymore, but I find it useful to keep the designation just to know what class they came in.) Subtracting the 8 commits (they don't have a scholarship #) from the 12 leaves you with 4 available scholarships. Now you know why I added a formula at the bottom! It will automatically adjust when I add or remove rows.
 
#25      

Hoppy2105

Little Rock, Arkansas
Sure. There are a total of 85 scholarships available, fully allocated in 2019. There are actually 8, not 7, blank cells, plus 4 "Available redshirt" cells to include for a total of 12 players leaving. (At this point in the season, I don't believe any of the seniors actually have the redshirt available anymore, but I find it useful to keep the designation just to know what class they came in.) Subtracting the 8 commits (they don't have a scholarship #) from the 12 leaves you with 4 available scholarships. Now you know why I added a formula at the bottom! It will automatically adjust when I add or remove rows.

Awesome, thanks for the explanation. I’m tracking now!

What was throwing me off was that our commits didn’t have a number associated with them yet.