FB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Jbothe]

Augie Preview

Loaded with experience. New turf at Lindberg Stadium. They got some votes in the AFCA poll. New DC with new scheme. Breyden Smith WR was going to return for a 5th year but will miss the season with a broken collarbone.

Am I reading it correctly that Augie has 42 seniors and five 5th years coming back?  47???

[CarollFan]

Augie Preview

Loaded with experience. New turf at Lindberg Stadium. They got some votes in the AFCA poll. New DC with new scheme. Breyden Smith WR was going to return for a 5th year but will miss the season with a broken collarbone.

Am I reading it correctly that Augie has 42 seniors and five 5th years coming back?  47???

Yes, that's the way I interpreted it. Out of the 47, 19 returning starters. 9 on offense, 8 on defense and 2 kickers.
They were 7-3 last year.

[CarollFan]

Some of you guys are going to be announcing, "Butkus with the tackle." 

[Jbothe]

Augie Preview

Loaded with experience. New turf at Lindberg Stadium. They got some votes in the AFCA poll. New DC with new scheme. Breyden Smith WR was going to return for a 5th year but will miss the season with a broken collarbone.

Am I reading it correctly that Augie has 42 seniors and five 5th years coming back?  47???

Yes, that's the way I interpreted it. Out of the 47, 19 returning starters. 9 on offense, 8 on defense and 2 kickers.
They were 7-3 last year.

I give the current Augustana Coaching staff credit for recruiting and retaining so many older players.  That has been a strength of Coach Bell and his assistants. 

[CarollFan]

Wheaton is ranked #5 in the country yet they are not favored to win their conference.
I would think that would be rare to have a top 5 team not favored to win their conference. I may be wrong.

I saw a message indicating some people concerned NCC could lose a game this year. I'll throw this out there. If both NCC and Wheaton go 9-1, I wouldn't be surprised to see Wheaton end up with a higher NPI ranking.

[Jbothe]

I just looked at Augustana roster and counted 32 seniors and 4 grad students.

32 is still a large number.  47 is hard to believe.

[CarollFan]

I just looked at Augustana roster and counted 32 seniors and 4 grad students.

32 is still a large number.  47 is hard to believe.

I think the key is the number of starters who are 4 year or 5th year.
The article has a picture of 5 fifth year players. Two players in that picture Carl Thomas (20) is listed as a junior on the roster and Ben Hartman is listed as redshirt.

4rth or 5th year in school won't necessarily be listed as senior or graduate on the roster. I think on the roster what your listed as is tied to eligibility.

[Gregory Sager]

The article has a picture of 5 fifth year players. Two players in that picture Carl Thomas (20) is listed as a junior on the roster and Ben Hartman is listed as redshirt.

4rth or 5th year in school won't necessarily be listed as senior or graduate on the roster. I think on the roster what your listed as is tied to eligibility.

Two things:

1) "Redshirt" is not a class. Freshman (or First-Year), Sophomore, Junior, Senior, and Graduate are classes. "Redshirt" modifies the class status to indicate that the student-athlete has spent an academic year practicing with the team but not suiting up for games. It's usually affixed to freshmen to indicate that they're going to be playing for the first time this season but that they've had a year to practice, learn the system, bulk up in the weight room, get used to college, etc. -- but you can list players as Redshirt Sophomore, Redshirt Junior, etc., as well. But, whether your school lists your class by eligibility or by academic status, you can't simply be a "Redshirt" any more than your position can be "Right" or "Left". The Augustana sports information office needs to fix Ben Hartman's roster entry and give him a proper class, either Senior or (if the caption of the pic in the Quad City Times article is correct, which I'm not taking on faith) Graduate.

2) Redshirting is illegal in D3. Hartman played in one game for Augie as a freshman in 2022, two games as a sophomore in 2023, six games as a junior in 2024, and none last year. He did have his portrait taken last year in his 2025 Augustana football polo, and it appears on his bio page, but he didn't play and he wasn't listed on the 2025 roster. So most likely he was injured in preseason and missed all of last season, and is now enrolled as either a fifth-year senior or as a graduate student at Augustana in order to use his final year of eligibility for football.

Even if he had played in a game or two last season before being hurt, his eligibility this season would've been granted by the CCIW because of what's called a medical hardship waiver. The informal name for it is "medical redshirt", but it isn't really a redshirt at all. He didn't practice with the team, which is the whole point of redshirting. Like a redshirt, he is taking five years of schooling (or perhaps 4 1/2) to play four seasons, but he doesn't have the redshirt's benefit of the extra non-playing year spent honing his craft with his teammates. More likely, he was recovering from and then rehabbing whatever serious injury had taken away his 2025 season. And since he didn't even play at all last season, the whole point about a medical hardship waiver is moot, anyway; he's only used three years of eligibility, and thus he doesn't need permission to waive his participating in a small part of a fourth season.

Listing him as "Redshirt" is not only erroneous in terms of class listing, it's also inaccurate in terms of describing why he is playing in his fifth year as an Augustana student. Worse -- much worse -- is that Augustana looks like it's breaking D3 rules just by having the dreaded R-word attached to his name, especially without any further explanation. If Augustana wants to convey the impression that it's illegally redshirting players, that's Augie's business. But if I was an Augie fan, I'd tell the Augustana sports info office to fix Ben Hartman's listing tout de suite. It makes Augie look bad.