Dan Lanning excited for the opportunity young players have in bowl game

Oregon, like all FBS teams, will get the chance to play redshirt players without it counting toward their eligibility. And head coach Dan Lanning is intent on using the chance to develop young talent.

Asked how redshirt players prep and how ready they’d be to play in the Holiday Bowl, Lanning was confident.

“Our guys prepare like that for every game. We train everybody in our program, we try to develop everybody in our program. So that’s great to hear,” Lanning said when learning about the rule change.

And with the usual wave of out transfers and opt outs, there will be plenty of opportunities for the younger Ducks to get some reps.

“Just like you said — when you have less people here, there’s more opportunities for the people that are here,” Lanning said. “And we’re excited about the guys we got.”

NCAA issues waiver letting FBS players participate in postseason without impacting redshirt status

According to reports, the NCAA has issued a one-time waiver that will allow FBS players to play in the postseason without it affecting their eligibility. This was first reported by Cole Cubelic and later confirmed by Nicole Auerbach.

Essentially, this means that playing in a bowl game will not count as one of the four games that a player has each season before burning a redshirt opportunity. However, players who burnt their redshirt in a conference championship game don’t qualify for this. It’s only games after December 15th. In other words, bowl games.

This is a one-time waiver as well, meaning it’s only for the 2022-23 bowl season. As a blanket waiver, it applies to every player at every FBS school.

The move made by the NCAA is likely due to the large number of players entering the NCAA Transfer Portal and opting out of bowl season. This, in turn, has limited the roster size of teams. Allowing an extra game should help with the depth of some teams.