Lincoln Riley calls for changes to redshirt rule amid Bear Alexander, Raesjon Davis situations

As college football teams got ready to play their fifth games, some players decided to take a redshirt and preserve a year of eligibility. NCAA rules allow football player to appear in four games before losing a year, and that led to plans to sit out the rest of the season as a result.

USC is dealing with two of those situations. News broke last week about Bear Alexander’s plans to save a year of eligibility after appearing in four games, and he won’t suit up for Lincoln Riley’s group the rest of the way. Linebacker Raesjon Davis made the same decision, and Riley said he understood why.

However, the coach shared a potential solution during his weekly press conference on Tuesday. Riley said the NCAA should allow players to have five years of eligibility instead of four so teams don’t have to worry about players sitting out the last two-thirds of the season.

“I think guys should have five years,” Riley told reporters. “Do whatever you want, play as much as you want or as little as you want, and the only way you get an extra one is if you have two season-ending injuries and miss the whole season.

“I think it should be that plain and simple and be done, and then nobody’ll have to worry about this other crap about how many games you’ve played and all that. I understand why it’s there, but I still think it’s a little bit behind the times.”

Lincoln Riley: Redshirt rule will ‘have to be addressed, big-picture’

Bear Alexander was one of the highest-profile redshirt situations last week. Of course, the biggest was at UNLV, where Matthew Sluka announced he planned to sit out the rest of the season and enter the transfer portal amid an NIL situation. On3’s Pete Nakos confirmed the former Holy Cross quarterback was verbally promised a $100,000 NIL deal, but only received a $3,000 relocation fee.

But Alexander’s decision also generated headlines, and Lincoln Riley said he wouldn’t address it further after initially commenting ahead of the matchup against Wisconsin. Tuesday, he again told reporters he thinks USC has “said all we’ll say on this.”

As for Raesjon Davis, Riley said he understands both sides because it came down to playing time on defense instead of special teams. He then pointed out the “push-pull” that exists under the current rule as a reason why things need to change moving forward.

“Raesjon a senior,” Riley said. “He’s not playing … significant defensive snaps right now. He’s done some really good things. Had a big-time special teams play for us the other day. He came in, we chatted about it. You can understand both sides of it.

“It’ll be something that’ll have to be addressed, big-picture, putting teams, players, all that in these positions. This four-game redshirt year, I think there’s probably some better ways to do it than maybe what we’re doing it right now. But as long as we have it, we’re gonna have some situations like this right now. You understand the push-pull. The kid really wants to play, but he also wants a chance to play more defensively, too. We’ll watch it play out. Nothing’s set in stone right now. That option’s out there, but we’ll see how this season evolves and how it evolves for Raesjon.”