For coaches, the redshirt blues

Maryland football coach Ralph Friedgen has extracted nearly everything possible from his supermodel-thin wide receiver corps this season, acting with Wizard of Oz-like dexterity behind a curtain to create the appearance of flexibility in the passing game.

The Terrapins’ deficiency — they have only three reliable wideouts — was exposed in Saturday’s 38-16 loss at Boston College when Darrius Heyward-Bey missed the second half with a concussion. Seldom-used redshirt freshman Nolan Carroll earned his most extensive playing time of the season and dropped two passes, including a likely touchdown.

Friedgen declined to update Heyward-Bey’s status yesterday for Saturday’s meeting with Wake Forest, leaving open the possibility the Terps (8-3, 5-2 ACC) will have to conjure a game plan with only two experienced receivers.

It’s enough to make anyone wonder how things might be if different decisions were made four years ago, when wideouts Danny Melendez and Jo Jo Walker were used as tertiary (at best) options as true freshmen.

Both players produced career years last fall as their eligibility expired, and Melendez and Walker probably would have provided a greater boost this season than the 10 receptions and three kickoff returns they combined for in 2002 as true freshmen.

Yet as easy as it is to analyze those choices with nearly a half-decade of hindsight, it ignores the challenges Friedgen faced when the decisions were originally made.

“They’d be playing right now,” Friedgen said. “[Four] years ago, I couldn’t redshirt those guys. I needed them to play then, just like I need these guys to play now.”

Therein lies the dilemma coaches face with true freshmen: Focus on the present and risk playing catchup in the future or look to the future and hold back a guy who could help immediately.

An established plan

No ACC program has systematically redshirted freshmen better than Wake Forest, giving 114 of 123 true freshmen in coach Jim Grobe’s six seasons a chance to mature. The Demon Deacons (9-2, 5-2 ACC) are one of only two Division I-A teams to use no true freshmen this season.

Grobe instituted the redshirting plan immediately with the support of athletic director Ron Wellman after the coach was hired. It was clear the tiny school, never a recruiting dynamo, would be best served fielding teams capable of masking sheer talent deficiencies through maturity, experience and smart play.

“The biggest thing is we want the four best years of football out of our guys,” Grobe said. “It doesn’t take much thought to realize a true freshman is probably not going to play as well as a fifth-year senior; an 18-year-old kid is not going to play as well as a 22- or 23-year-old kid.”

Mass redshirting brings some danger. Players can graduate in four years and decide to begin their post-collegiate life. Then there is the allure of the NFL, which draws some of the best players out of college prematurely.

A player from each of Friedgen’s first three recruiting classes turned pro a year early, and all were on the field as true freshmen. It is even more exaggerated at N.C. State, where Chuck Amato lost four underclassmen on defense after last season to the draft.

“They realize they have an opportunity to come in and get playing time if they’re ready,” said Amato, who played only two freshmen this year. “You watch across the country and a lot of people on the lines are playing with fifth-year seniors and fourth-year juniors. That extra year of experience is so, so big. But you have to be worried if you redshirt these guys: Are they going to be there five years from now?”

A way to minimize the consequences of playing true freshmen is to grant five years of eligibility and do away with redshirt seasons. Coaches have floated the idea several times, though it has never gained enough support from university presidents.

It is a proposal Friedgen ardently defends and could talk about for hours. He rued recently how William Kershaw, a true senior linebacker last year, was 12 credits shy of graduating after the season but pursued an NFL career. Kershaw is on the Kansas City Chiefs’ practice squad but could have stayed at Maryland and earned a degree with an extra year of eligibility.

“There would be less scholarships every year because you wouldn’t have to go out and get more [players], and it would save money and more kids would graduate,” Friedgen said. “It’s so asinine that we don’t do this. It makes no sense at all because we give the perception that it takes more than four years to graduate when the retention rate is based on five years. I don’t know if the presidents know that or not.”

Change in College Park

Maryland adopted a Wake-like approach this season to its freshman class. Cory Jackson is the only true freshman to appear, and he took over as the starting fullback after Tim Cesa suffered a concussion Oct. 28.

Friedgen toyed with the notion of using linebacker Alex Wujciak and tailback Da’Rel Scott but decided against it, though Wujciak has traveled to every game. Quarterback Jeremy Ricker and tight end Drew Gloster both traveled to Boston College, though neither is likely to play this season.

It is a luxury Friedgen hasn’t enjoyed since he took the job. The Terps played at least five true freshmen in each of his first five years, yet of the 33 true freshmen to play under Friedgen, nine appeared in five or fewer games.

“I’m kind of anxious to see how these kids develop with the redshirt because we haven’t had that opportunity before,” Friedgen said.

Friedgen believes he will need to rely on younger players again as recruiting classes turn over and he starts to lose about 20 scholarship seniors a year rather than the dozen the Terps possess this season.

Establishing a regular redshirting routine prevents some cyclical problems. Instead, a team like Wake Forest can build a lineup that includes 14 fourth- or fifth-year players as starters and features players like senior Josh Gattis, a likely All-ACC safety who gradually matured for the Demon Deacons.

“As a sophomore, he made plays that really hurt us in some games late in the fourth quarter, but you don’t see him making the same mistakes,” Grobe said. “Physically, you see changes, but I think the biggest thing is the experiences they have that are negative turn into positive plays because they play smarter and with a greater sense of purpose.”