I noticed some colleges (at all levels) play fall games against outside competition. Do these games count towards max games, redshirting, roster cap, etc...?
I also noticed that some JUCO's play showcase teams. Do the travel teams even consider it part of their regular schedule, do they bring in there top players (especially for national teams, etc...
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My Summer team played a Juco last fall. It was a way to show off my own players. It was not part of our regular schedule. I had several football players from my roster playing, who hadn't seen a live pitch in almost 2 months. Fall Juco games are scrimmages. They don't count. It's a way of floating players in and out, changing pitchers every inning or almost every inning and seeing how everyone will likely fit in the Spring. For an incoming Freshman at a Juco, it's an immediate opportunity to win a position battle.
NAIA can play up to 8 games....and they count toward next spring's record. Not sure about others, but D1's can play 2....they don't count on the record, but they can then only schedule 52 games in the spring instead of 54
In Division I, they count against the 56-game limit. Despite this, some schools schedule a game in the fall.
There's a fair amount of sentiment to change this among Division I coaches, so don't be surprised if the rules are modified eventually to allow a small number of games in the fall as non-counting scrimmages.
In Division II, fall games count against the 56 game schedule as well. (Son played at a DII school). When he was at a JuCo, they played 15-20 games in the fall. To my knowledge the fall games in JuCo (NJCAA) do not count against the 56 game schedule in the spring. His JuCo still scheduled 50+ games in the spring after playing 15-20 games in the fall.
Any JUCO players who appear in more than two games or scrimmages in the Fall schedule - even if they never appear in another game that school year (maybe they left the school, or the coach is disciplining them for some reason) - will have that count as a season of eligibility used when they transfer to an NCAA Division I or II program.
Also, Division I revised a rule back in the summer that may help players moving forward, and possibly also retroactively, regarding Fall game appearances. The change is such that a player who appears in a scrimmage or exhibition game during the Fall, but is redshirted and doesn't appear any more that year (while a member of a Division I team) can take that season as a redshirt season.
This rule change would have helped one of my clients a few years ago had it been in effect at that time because he was charged with a season of competition only because he appeared in one Fall scrimmage game against a local minor league team that was just finishing their season.
