MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - It's rare when a group of coaches can get together and agree on anything, but it happened last January when the American Football Coaches Association unanimously supported a significant rule change allowing a player to appear in up to four games and still retain his redshirt status.
 
It's a big, big deal for developmental programs such as West Virginia, which has almost always been right at the cusp late in the season in terms of depth.
 
Every West Virginia football coach I've ever talked to, going all the way back to the late Jim Carlen and Gene Corum, discussed their depth concerns like it was a disease.
 
"It's not your first 22," former coach Frank Cignetti once told me, "but the next 22 guys you are putting out there. That's what always got us."
 
For the most part, West Virginia's front-line guys have usually been comparable to nearly all of the teams on its schedule, the exception of course being Penn State for all of those years in the 1960s and 1970s.
 
The trouble usually occurred late in the season when injuries started to mount and the conundrum was always whether or not to burn the redshirt of a promising young player and risk blowing up the program's developmental plan for the sake of maybe winning an important game or two.
 
Don Nehlen viewed redshirting in almost a sacred manner. That extra year, especially for linemen such as Mike Fox or Rich Braham, was sometimes enough to turn skinny, 225-pound former high school tight ends into multi-year, standout NFL linemen.
 
Put him out there too early or not take the time to completely evaluate where he best fits on the football field and you run the risk of ruining a player's career.
 
Nehlen's successor, Rich Rodriguez, was much more willing to burn the redshirts of young players because, in his words, he wasn't going to "develop them for the next coach."

But not always. Think what would have happened in 2004 if Rodriguez would have pulled freshman quarterback Pat White's redshirt late in the season. Does West Virginia lose the Pitt game at the end of the year if White is available as a Wildcat quarterback, or used as a running back or as a wide receiver in a couple of offensive packages for that game?

One explosive playmaker was all West Virginia needed to beat the Panthers that night in Heinz Field.

Looking back on it, it was probably the difference between a Gator or a Fiesta Bowl for West Virginia that season, so having the flexibility to use a talented young player late in the year could make a big difference.

Another area where depth has traditionally hurt West Virginia late in the season is special teams because your blue bloods normally have better players on the field for those specific units. Having a couple of talented true freshmen out there might even the playing field a little bit at the end of the year.
 
During the seven seasons Dana Holgorsen has been at West Virginia, there have been numerous occasions when he has had to make tough choices on pulling redshirts or hanging on to them late in the season.
 
One that immediately comes to mind is tailback Martell Pettaway, who was forced to play as a true freshman against Iowa State two years ago, and he ended up carrying the ball 30 times for 181 yards and a touchdown in helping the Mountaineers to a critical, late-season victory.
 
Pettaway was the last healthy tailback WVU had at the time.
 
"I think that's the reason the rule passed," Holgorsen said Tuesday afternoon in Frisco, Texas. "(The coaches) talked about those scenarios for two years."
 
Pettaway played just three games during his freshman season in 2016, which would have made him a prime candidate for the new redshirt rule.

Unfortunately, it's not retroactive, according to Holgorsen.
 
"It's a shame," he said.
 
It is for Martell, but not for the young, developmental football players now coming to college campuses this fall. Coaches are going to have to pay closer attention to their full roster during the season - not just the guys on the depth chart getting all of the work during the week.

If this rule was in place last year, you probably would have seen talented true freshman running back Alec Sinkfield out on the field in the Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl against Utah.
 
"It's going to be more of an NFL-type of situation to where if you've got all of these guys that you might play, then who are the scout-team guys?" Holgorsen predicted. "You are going to have scout-team players that you can't say, 'He's redshirting and he's on scout team so I will see him in six months.' You can't do that now - and I like that as a head coach because now my linebacker coach is going to have to pay attention to what David Long (Jr.) is doing on scout team when we couldn't block him for eight straight weeks.
 
"Now, you've got to get that guy ready to play game nine."
 
It means a high school player who is still a high school player at the end of August camp - but might turn into a usable college player by the end of October - has an opportunity to contribute to the team's success without compromising his developmental future.
 
It's really a win-win for everybody.
 
"From a player development aspect, I think it's going to keep them engaged," Holgorsen predicted. "But coaches better do a good job of coaching their scout-team guys even though they don't have them as much. They have to find time and coach them."
 
Thursday night football during the season, which is generally the time when the developmental players get an opportunity to play Mountaineer football instead of Oklahoma football, Texas football or the team they are emulating during the week, is going to be critically important to the success of the team.
 
Those guys who shine on Thursdays could very well get a Saturday morning callup, in some instances.
 


"Your scout team is now going to be more of a farm system," Holgorsen noted. "I'm excited about talking to our young players about that on August 2. 'You may be on scout team, but there are a whole bunch of eyes on you because we can call you up at any point.'"
 
Holgorsen said Thursday's time with the younger players is now going to be viewed much in the same manner as Tuesdays and Wednesdays in getting the team prepared for Saturday's game.
 
Every single position coach is going to have to be engaged and attentive to young players who might be able to help them on the weekend.
 
"I get a little irritated with our coaches sometimes, 'Ugh, Thursday night football. I've got to go out there and pay attention to these guys that are redshirting,'" Holgorsen admitted. "Well, that guy that is redshirting and you didn't get to coach them Tuesday and Wednesday in practice because they are on the developmental squad, the 'look squad' or whatever you want to call them, now they have to coach their tails off with those guys on Thursdays because they may need to play."
 
Holgorsen recalled instances when he's gotten a player hurt on Friday and had to pull them off the travel list and put another player on the bus for the game the next day.
 
"You better have a redshirt ready," he said.
 
Holgorsen believes scenarios could change on a week-by-week basis, especially once his team gets deeper into the season and deeper into the depth chart.
 
"I am going to remind them every Thursday, 'It's important what you are about to go out there and do because you may catch the eye of a coach and we may activate you on Saturday morning,'" he said.
 
Interesting.
 
It's also going to be interesting to observe all of the roster watchers later in the season sitting with their binoculars in the press box trying to see which young players end up getting activated. The new rule is going to keep everybody on their toes.
 
"I like it for a number of reasons. How do you use it? I don't think you can come up with a strategy before the season. I think throughout the course of the season you figure out when you need it and you use it," Holgorsen concluded.
 
Can you imagine if this rule was in place during some of those years when Nehlen refused to alter his developmental plan late in the season when injuries were mounting. How about 1986 when Major Harris was redshirting? He might have made a difference in four games, which could have turned a four-win season into a five or six-win season.
 
In other cases, it probably would have meant the difference between going to a bowl game and staying home for the holidays.