Many people have heard of redshirting and the now-2-year-old rule that allows a player to play up to four games and still keep his redshirt status.
But what the heck is a grayshirt, a blueshirt, and a greenshirt? If you have no clue what these terms mean, it’s best to read this article before reading my next blog post detailing UH’s latest coaches and recruits.
I discussed grayshirting and blueshirting in my first blog post of 2019, but now focus on it in one blog post.
Grayshirt: A grayshirt is a player who might sign a national letter of intent (LOI) or a scholarship agreement, then delay his full-time enrollment past the next football season to play, for example, the following season. Therefore, his eligibility clock is also delayed until the athlete enrolls full-time at the school.
Any LOI is good for one year from the date of signing. After that one year expires, athletes must sign another LOI – but it does NOT have to be with the same school. Grayshirts, therefore, can be more a risk for the school than the player.
Grayshirts usually join their team around January, after the most recent season has ended, to allow maximum time to participate in workouts or practices (both spring ball and fall camp), and otherwise bond with his new teammates.
Grayshirting is common when players need to physically develop or rehab from significant injuries. Anyone can grayshirt, from high school seniors to JUCO athletes.
Grayshirts are usually athletes formally recruited by a school. As noted below, the NCAA has a definition on who a “recruit” is.
Grayshirts generally are not used on blue-chip athletes, who rely on playing immediately to set themselves up on a fast-track to the NFL.
Blessman Ta’ala is one of the most recent examples of a UH player benefiting from grayshirting. Ta’ala signed an agreement on National Signing Day in February 2017 (no early signing period at the time), but chose to delay his enrollment to January 2018 to heal from a significant injury. Although one year had NOT passed and the original LOI was still binding, Ta’ala signed another LOI in December 2017 (the first time the NCAA had an early signing period) and enrolled in January 2018. He has been a starter since his true freshman season and has two more years of eligibility.
For Gabriel Iniguez, the latest grayshirt, he signed his LOI in February 2019, did not play football or enroll at UH for the Fall 2019 semester, and enrolled at UH in January 2020. Since Iniguez enrolled at UH before the one-year LOI term expired, Iniguez did not have to sign another LOI. Iniguez still has five years to play four seasons, starting with the 2020 season.
For both Ta’ala and Iniguez, the scholarship counted towards the latest class – Ta’ala for the 2018 class and Iniguez for the 2020 class.
Some coaches could be clear from the outset with the player about a grayshirt offer, but others have sprung this as a surprise on the recruit at the last minute (after the recruit figured all along it would be an immediate scholarship to join the team right away), which usually doesn’t work out well for either side.
Grayshirt – Church Mission: In a version of the above grayshirting scenario noted above, high school senior football players may sign an agreement or LOI to play for a school, but delay enrollment to go on a church mission, usually two years, before returning to play college football. BYU deals with these very often.
Because the mission goes more than one year, the LOI will have expired by the time the athlete returns from said mission, and thus, the athlete is free to sign with any school.
A well-known example at Hawaii is John Ursua. In January 2012, Ursua committed to UH when Norm Chow was head coach. Ursua signed an LOI on National Signing Day the following month, then then went on a church mission in Paris, France. When Ursua completed his mission in 2015, he was considered a free agent. Ursua still enrolled at Hawaii, noting that Chow kept in touch with him the best (BYU and Kalani Sitake was the only other notable school in the mix). Ursua redshirted in 2015 to get back into game shape, but was ready to go when Nick Rolovich took over in 2016. After three great years at UH, the Seattle Seahawks took Ursua in the 7th round of the 2019 NFL Draft.
Blueshirt: A blueshirt is a player who is not formally recruited, joins the team as a walk-on, and is then placed on scholarship sometime on or after the first day he joins the squad. If so, his scholarship counts towards the following year’s class. So if the player gets his blueshirt scholarship in the 2019 season, that scholarship counts toward the 2020 recruiting class.
The NCAA defines “recruited” as one of the following:
- Received an official visit to that school’s campus;
- Arranged in-person, off-campus contact with that school’s coach, OR
- Sent a national letter of intent or other written scholarship offer from the team.
You won’t be seeing any 4-star and 5-star athletes getting blueshirted because some school will be recruiting the athlete in an official capacity, as defined by the NCAA.
JoJo Ward is a recent UH blueshirt. After two seasons at Tyler Junior College (TX), he joined the team as a walk-on in summer 2018 and shot up the depth chart immediately. Rolovich placed him on scholarship, which counted toward the 2019 recruiting class. Ward was a starting wideout at UH for two seasons.
Greenshirt: I have not previously discussed the greenshirt, which has also become more common in recent years. A greenshirt is a high school senior who graduates early and joins the team before many of the other recruits in his recruiting class report to the team.
Unlike the grayshirt and the blueshirt, a greenshirt can count towards that particular year’s recruiting class.
This is best described with more specific timelines. Let’s assume Hawaii is recruiting John Smith, a current high school junior. Smith is a star player, so one of UH’s coaches offers Smith a scholarship starting with the Fall 2021 season. Smith gets the official recruitment treatment, as many greenshirts are, including an official visit and several in-person contacts with coaches. The scholarship here is meant to count toward the 2021 recruiting cycle. Smith loves UH so much, he commits right away. Smith then becomes a high school senior in Fall 2020 and signs his letter of intent at the earliest date possible, which is December 2020. Further, Smith is a gifted student who has taken a ton of credits to graduate a semester early. Smith signs his LOI, graduates high school in December 2020, and reports to UH in January 2021, after the 2020 football season has ended. Smith is a greenshirt, with five years to play four seasons, starting with the 2021 season.
A recent UH example is Jeremy Moussa. He was part of UH’s 2018 recruiting class, graduated high school early (December 2017), and joined in January 2018, before most of the other recruits joined in the summer.
Hawaii high school star Tua Tagovailoa also went the greenshirt route, graduating from St. Louis School in December 2016 and enrolling at Alabama a semester the following month. At the time, there was no early signing period, but Tua, having already moved to Tuscaloosa, formally signed his LOI in February 2017 and his scholarship counted toward Alabama’s 2017 recruiting class.
