An alternative to the redshirt year - grayshirting

A correction: D2 allows 10 full time semesters rather than 5 calendar years, so in that respect D2 and D3 are similar.

The football example can't, as I understand the rule, play out exactly as presented. By 14.1.8.1, a student must be enrolled full-time to practice with the team. However, there is no practical advantage with respect to the 5 year rule whether the student enrolls full-time mid-year or in the fall. For example if he enrolls full-time in Jan 2009, his 5 year calendar runs out at the end of December 2013. If he instead enrolls in the fall of 2009, the 5 years ends summer 2013. So his eligibility to compete (assuming a reshirt season) is extended from Jan 2014 to summer 2014. Is there any NCAA football competition during that time? My belief is the value of enrolling early and part-time is that a student gets a jump start on academic progress, but he has to forego official practices.

But this points up a disadvantage of greyshirting: Where and how is the player going to practice during the greyshirt year? Perhaps the D2 rules are the most restrictive, so let's look at those.

14.2.4.2 Participation in Organized Competition or Training Prior to Initial Collegiate Enrollment.
An individual who does not enroll in a collegiate institution as a full-time student during the regular academic term that is immediately following the date that the individual’s high school class normally graduates from high school .... shall use a season of intercollegiate competition for each calendar year or sports season (following that date) in which the individual has participated in activities that meet the criteria set forth in Bylaw 14.2.4.2.3. (...Revised: 2/21/08)

14.2.4.2.3 Activities Constituting Use of Season.
.....
(b) Any competition or training with a team in which compensation is provided to any of the participants (including actual and necessary expenses); (Revised: 4/11/06)
....

I won't quote the rest of rule detailing which expenses trigger the use of a season, or the possibility of offsetting fees, but it is clear (to me, having read this for the first time today) that a player who greyshirts at a JC and practices legally with the team, will have used a year of competition if he transfers to a D2 school. If he competes on a school club team, and the school has a varsity team, it consumes a year. Practice with a Connie Mack team after September of the HS senior year? Maybe OK, but probably not if the team has much sponsorship.

How about practicing individually?
"(c) Any individual competition or training in which any of the participants receive compensation (including actual and necessary expenses); (Revised: 10/3/07, 1/11/08)"
The Jan 2008 revision inserted the word "any", and the proposal included the following comment: "2001 NCAA Convention Division II Proposal No. 12 intended to capture this type of participation due to the competitive advantage gained by those individuals who delay collegiate enrollment after high school graduation an participate in this type of organized competition. "

So, I think a discussion of how to greyshirt is worthwhile, because I think there are pitfalls.
Given the pace of revisions in the D2 rules, I suspect that the NCAA will tend to increasingly discourage greyshirting.

3FG:

Thanks for the corrections on D2 - edits made above.

As for the football player example given above, it is what the NCAA staffer used when I was talking to her on the phone last spring.

Yet I went back and reread the rules this morning, and I see the same thing that 3FG does.

I'll call the NCAA next week and see if I can get additional clarification. As 3FG says, this is a tricky area with lots of pitfalls - but still a useful tool in the right circumstances.