Oklahoma HC Brent Venables Believes Tweaks to Redshirt Rule Will Happen 'Very Soon'

Brent Venables is confident a big change will be coming to college football soon. 

Currently, players can appear in up to four regular season games and still redshirt to save a year of eligibility.

Venables believes the redshirt will soon become a thing of the past, and instead, players will just have five years of eligibility, regardless of playing time. 

“I’ve been told it’s inevitable,” Venables said during his weekly press conference on Tuesday. “It’s supposed to happen very soon.”

Removing a cap on games to maintain a redshirt will help teams in a number of areas. 

Young players can get a taste of game action on special teams without losing a year of eligibility. Currently, the Sooners have freshman receiver Elijah Thomas playing a key role on their kick coverage teams.

He’s made the decision to forgo a redshirt to be able to contribute on special teams despite earning no real role on the offense so far. 

Future players like Thomas would be able to contribute on special teams as a freshman without having to make the tough decision to redshirt or not. 

A year ago, running back Xavier Robinson said he’d happily waive his redshirt if he could help the Sooners win late in the season. He wouldn’t have had to choose between an extra game of playing time or an extra year of eligibility under the proposed rule change. 

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“You spend all this time getting ‘em ready, investing in them, preparing them, making hard decisions where they became a 2-deep guy, then all of a sudden if that rule isn’t there, then it can make things a little more challenging than it needs to be,” Venbles said.

Venables said changing the rule to grant five years of eligibility in place of redshirts could also help the NCAA reduce the number of case-by-case waivers they have to process around each individual player. 

Still, college programs across the country will have to continue weighing the redshirt rule in their roster decisions for the rest of the year. 

For instance, Oklahoma running back Jovantae Barnes could benefit from having five years of eligibility. 

The senior has played in four games this year, but Venables said he was held out of the contest against Texas because he felt something during the warmup. 

If Barnes had five years of eligibility, he could rehab his injury at his own pace, potentially returning later in the year at no future cost. 

Now, when he’s back healthy, Barnes and the coaching staff will have to determine if they want to maintain his redshirt so he can try and return to his best in 2026.

“(Players are) not going to be grandfathered,” Venables said. “This will be a year that counts towards that. But I’ve been told (the rule change is) supposed to happen, sooner rather than later. “