Five in Five - What Might That Look Like?

GregPickel

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Acacia

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Feedback, corrections, things left out, etc, let me here them. Tried to be as comprehensive as possible here without knowing the full picture of any potential waivers that will be submitted.
Just a couple of thoughts. With no redshirts Penn State can load balance the schedule more easily to minimize injuries and the team can wrestle the Southern Scuffle as an attached team --- although that would count as a competition date.
 

Corby2

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The first one was filed in Ohio the day after it was announced by 15 basketball players who enrolled in Fall 2022 and played 4 straight years and now they want the 5th year.
The NCAA is gonna claim they exhausted all their eligibility already and the rule wasn't in place until after that. And they will say this would mess up roster spots for HS students about to enroll who were told they would've a roster spot. It would make the roster limit situation a mess. I still think the athletes win and get a 5th year
 

Wrestleknownothing

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The first one was filed in Ohio the day after it was announced by 15 basketball players who enrolled in Fall 2022 and played 4 straight years and now they want the 5th year.
The NCAA is gonna claim they exhausted all their eligibility already and the rule wasn't in place until after that. And they will say this would mess up roster spots for HS students about to enroll who were told they would've a roster spot. It would make the roster limit situation a mess. I still think the athletes win and get a 5th year
I am not sure the athletes will win. The only argument for getting a fifth year is if the rule is made retroactive. After all, under the old rules they also would not get another year.

You can make a shaky argument that for athletes with remaining eligibility the option to switch to the 5 in 5 model is an element of retroactivity. The NCAA will argue it is grandfathering instead. Which argument will the court accept? Hard to say, but I can see them siding with the NCAA on this one. If they side with the athletes who had their eligibility expire before the rule change then why wouldn't athletes from one, two, or more years ago also be owed more eligibility?

I know we like to joke that the NCAA always loses in court, but that is not the case. The one area where they win 50% or more of the time is in eligibility. We tend to hear about the ones where they lose more than the ones where they win, so it can feel like they are always losing.
 

Psalm 1 guy

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Checking in from beautiful St. John's, Newfoundland en route to Greenland and Iceland. It will be interesting to see how the courts rule or don't rule on this. I can't help but feel bad, as others have previously mentioned, for wrestlers like Mark Hall and Cenzo, who only got 3 years. All the record books going forward are going to have a lot of asterisks to explain to fans in the future why some wrestlers won so many titles and others didn't.1000008655.jpg
 

Goggles Paisano

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I love all the tweets and posts about the impact on guys that have never won an ncaa match. Oh - can he be a 5xer or only a 4xer? As if it’s that easy. Good Lord, could you imagine HR if this was the summer before Lord Spencer’s freshman year? Or even Warnerov’s?
Granted I don't like 5 for 5 one bit. The thought of kids consuming a starting spot for 5 straight years just doesn't sit right with me.

That aside, once recruiting adjustments and portalling settles down in a couple of years, I think the end result will be, relatively few kids will wrestle 5 years.

Even on the best teams you have only so many real generational talents. I think the norm will become most rosters will have a lot of 2, 3 and 4 year starters. With fresh talent always coming in it's pretty darned hard to hold down a slot for 5 years, and not get injured as well.

Likewise, how many freshmen are really ready to take out a multi year starter? Sure we all know the names, but nationwide the list isn't that big, the vast majority of incoming freshmen will sit, but we just can't call it a redshirt anymore.

PS - Greyshirt James!!!! ;-)
 

Wrestleknownothing

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I am guessing Kaleb Larkin will be the oldest man in college wrestling in three years time.

He took a deferment, an Olympic redshirt, and a regular redshirt - all before completing his freshman season this past season. I think he is the only class of 2022 grad who has three years left. He will definitely opt for the old rules to preserve those three remaining years as I assume he would age out in the 5 in 5 rule set.
 

Corby2

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I am guessing Kaleb Larkin will be the oldest man in college wrestling in three years time.

He took a deferment, an Olympic redshirt, and a regular redshirt - all before completing his freshman season this past season. I think he is the only class of 2022 grad who has three years left. He will definitely opt for the old rules to preserve those three remaining years as I assume he would age out in the 5 in 5 rule set.
If he took a regular RS he can't do 5 for 5. He will have 3 more years . I think he would be 25 then just before the season starts. If I remember right she was pregnant Eric Sr year
 
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TwoJoints

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The first one was filed in Ohio the day after it was announced by 15 basketball players who enrolled in Fall 2022 and played 4 straight years and now they want the 5th year.
The NCAA is gonna claim they exhausted all their eligibility already and the rule wasn't in place until after that. And they will say this would mess up roster spots for HS students about to enroll who were told they would've a roster spot. It would make the roster limit situation a mess. I still think the athletes win and get a 5th year
Yes, but IIRC the Ohio action is a state court filing while the filing mentioned in the Reuters article is a federal district court action filed in Illinois seeking to certify a class action. If the Fed Ct class gets certified that action will potentially be a much larger deal than the Ohio state court action.
 

Nitlion1986

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The first one was filed in Ohio the day after it was announced by 15 basketball players who enrolled in Fall 2022 and played 4 straight years and now they want the 5th year.
The NCAA is gonna claim they exhausted all their eligibility already and the rule wasn't in place until after that. And they will say this would mess up roster spots for HS students about to enroll who were told they would've a roster spot. It would make the roster limit situation a mess. I still think the athletes win and get a 5th year
I don't think there is a chance in the entire universe the NCAA doesn't lose. Once they started owning NIL and paying the athletes this was eventually going to become about restricting economic opportunities.
If they had not been so freaking small minded and just allowed student athletes to earn income from their own images and their position in the community they wouldn't have these issues. They are now positioned to have to deal with student athletes as employees and negotiate for eligibility restrictions as well as some control of NIL monies. Cruz, Trump and Saban can introduce whatever legislation they want, it won't survive the courts.
 
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vhsalum

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I don't think there is a chance in the entire universe the NCAA doesn't lose. Once they started owning NIL and paying the athletes this was eventually going to become about restricting economic opportunities.
If they had not been so freaking small minded and just allowed stendent athletes to earn income from their own images and their position in the community they wouldn't have these issues. They are now positioned to have to deal with student athletes as employees and negotiate for eligibility restrictions as well as some control of NIL monies. Cruz, Trump and Saban can introduce whatever legislation they want, it won't survive the courts.

DING, DING, DING!!!!

And its not like the NCAA wasn't told this would happen. Absolute idiots.
 

JA1339

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Granted I don't like 5 for 5 one bit.
Do you dislike it because it’s bad for the wrestlers? Or because it impacts your lengthy dissertations about which wrestlers should be starting and which should be redshirting? 😉

My 2 cents… our best hammers don’t want to redshirt, and come in ready go. Some others will be impacted, and will only start 2 or 3 years vs 4.
 
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Lil Nicky Scarfo

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Checking in from beautiful St. John's, Newfoundland en route to Greenland and Iceland. It will be interesting to see how the courts rule or don't rule on this. I can't help but feel bad, as others have previously mentioned, for wrestlers like Mark Hall and Cenzo, who only got 3 years. All the record books going forward are going to have a lot of asterisks to explain to fans in the future why some wrestlers won so many titles and others didn't.View attachment 1341603
Good old Signal Hill. Try to stop by the Terry Fox memorial near those cargo ships below where he dipped his false leg into the bay before starting his Marathon of Hope
 

mvattivo

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I would have rather had 4 in 5 years, but, it is what it is. As for PSU wrestling, personally, I'm not concerned. I have so much faith and Cael and our staff. They will handle this situation as good or better than any other staff. It might cause some guys to leave, but, our coaches have earned my complete trust that they will handle things correctly.
 

a_mshaffer

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Granted I don't like 5 for 5 one bit. The thought of kids consuming a starting spot for 5 straight years just doesn't sit right with me.

That aside, once recruiting adjustments and portalling settles down in a couple of years, I think the end result will be, relatively few kids will wrestle 5 years.

Even on the best teams you have only so many real generational talents. I think the norm will become most rosters will have a lot of 2, 3 and 4 year starters. With fresh talent always coming in it's pretty darned hard to hold down a slot for 5 years, and not get injured as well.

Likewise, how many freshmen are really ready to take out a multi year starter? Sure we all know the names, but nationwide the list isn't that big, the vast majority of incoming freshmen will sit, but we just can't call it a redshirt anymore.

PS - Greyshirt James!!!! ;-)
so we now have freshman, sophomore's, juniors, seniors and older seniors?
 

Nitlion1986

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DING, DING, DING!!!!

And its not like the NCAA wasn't told this would happen. Absolute idiots.
It was the BS with Jermey Bloom that I finally realized the NCAA was full of crap with no interest in the well being of the student athletes. Bloom was a professional skier who made millions off of ski endorsements. The NCAA told Bloom he had to return those millions and not accept any ski endorsement money if he wanted to play football at the university of Colorado. Of course Bloom told the NCAA no and tried fighting it.

This situation still angers me. F the a-holes running the NCAA and F the a-holes who think it is OK to screw other people out of their money.
 

District 4

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I would have rather had 4 in 5 years, but, it is what it is. As for PSU wrestling, personally, I'm not concerned. I have so much faith and Cael and our staff. They will handle this situation as good or better than any other staff. It might cause some guys to leave, but, our coaches have earned my complete trust that they will handle things correctly.
Like recruiting guys every 2 to 3 years instead of every year lol
 

Cali_Nittany1

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I would have rather had 4 in 5 years, but, it is what it is. As for PSU wrestling, personally, I'm not concerned. I have so much faith and Cael and our staff. They will handle this situation as good or better than any other staff. It might cause some guys to leave, but, our coaches have earned my complete trust that they will handle things correctly.

 

Goggles Paisano

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Do you dislike it because it’s bad for the wrestlers? Or because it impacts your lengthy dissertations about which wrestlers should be starting and which should be redshirting? 😉

My 2 cents… our best hammers don’t want to redshirt, and come in ready go. Some others will be impacted, and will only start 2 or 3 years vs 4.
I dislike it because Fresh + Soph + Jr + Sr = 4. Competing for 5 titles is a made up construct that defies the history of collegiate athletics, and is a poor albeit lazy solution to a different problem. PS - Unrelated, but for the record I objected to Carter coming back for his 5th as well

Cascading Redshirt, Oly shirts, and Injury shirts gave us some kids wrestling well past their 25th birthday. To think a kid could get standard redshirt, two Olympic cycle shirts, plus an injury year(s) is an absolute joke, easily solved. Using AJ Ferrari as an example, who didn't even try and qualify for the Oly team, is absurd.

All totally solveable with one small tweak. You get 1 shirt total no matter what flavor, yes even for injury. You don't even have to give it a name, you get 5 years to compete in 4 post seasons would have done it. I would have been on, with kids wrestling in November through February only to punt the post season.

As much as I would have enjoyed watching most of our greats get a 5th post season, sorry, it's just plain wrong given the university system is a 4 year system. Sure a fair percentage of regular students take 5 or 6 years to graduate academically, but there remain only 4 class years.

Limiting a coach's ability to jockey the lineup and manipulate who's starting is an unintended consequence that I don't like, but it's not my primary objection.
 
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rcsone1

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...seems like this stuff will surely limit high school recruit numbers?......is this right?......good or bad?....
 

Acacia

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Personally I like 5 for 5 and don't see it much different then 5 for 4. With expanded rosters and scholarships, revenue sharing and NIL and transfer portals, the world is drastically different than the old 9.9 model. In either ruleset the wrestler is in college 5 years. Why should an athlete sit out a year if they are the best? The old 5 for 4 has become the 6 for 4 or the 7 for 4 with redshirts, olympics, multiple injury shirts which results in transfers and NCAA lawsuits as well as difficulties in managing costs for scholarships, revenue share and NIL beyond 5 years.

I believe 5 for 5 is driven by the revenue sports (football and basketball) and is supported by the NCAA, NFL and the NBA. The colleges can better manage the costs, and the pro leagues aren't competing with colleges about player availability and money. The best players in the revenue sports will no longer wait their turn to participate because they have significant money available. Every year is a portal bonanza. College QBs are making more money than with NFL rookie contracts. With college playoffs constantly expanding and TV revenue sky rocketing, teams need every athlete to participate. Redshirts make zero sense anymore. Colleges are chasing the TV revenue.

Wrestling and the other non revenue sports are just along for the ride. Penn State is obviously doing great in wrestling and I don't see that changing near term. Wrestlers go to Penn State to be champions in college and beyond in world freestyle. With expanded rosters and scholarships, the depth at Penn State is awesome. Best coaches, best workout partners, full scholarships, NLWC (and its FUN)... 5 for 5 isn't causing the logjam. Expanded roster and scholarships (and revenue share and NIL) are. 4 for 5 wouldn't relieve the weight competitions. Having 14-15 All-Americans (potential) and only 10 weights makes competition inevitable. First world problems...
 
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tullfan68

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so is Bassett getting 4 or 5 first the NCAA said 4 now 5 did they change the rules just for him?
 

DWKeller

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...seems like this stuff will surely limit high school recruit numbers?......is this right?......good or bad?....
This depends on any final decision on the total # of wrestlers each team is allowed. No change in HS recruits - just where they go. My hunch - there will be more year end transfers to fill gaps.
 

a_mshaffer

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Personally I like 5 for 5 and don't see it much different then 5 for 4. With expanded rosters and scholarships, revenue sharing and NIL and transfer portals, the world is drastically different than the old 9.9 model. In either ruleset the wrestler is in college 5 years. Why should an athlete sit out a year if they are the best? The old 5 for 4 has become the 6 for 4 or the 7 for 4 with redshirts, olympics, multiple injury shirts which results in transfers and NCAA lawsuits as well as difficulties in managing costs for scholarships, revenue share and NIL beyond 5 years.

I believe 5 for 5 is driven by the revenue sports (football and basketball) and is supported by the NCAA, NFL and the NBA. The colleges can better manage the costs, and the pro leagues aren't competing with colleges about player availability and money. The best players in the revenue sports will no longer wait their turn to participate because they have significant money available. Every year is a portal bonanza. College QBs are making more money than with NFL rookie contracts. With college playoffs constantly expanding and TV revenue sky rocketing, teams need every athlete to participate. Redshirts make zero sense anymore. Colleges are chasing the TV revenue.

Wrestling and the other non revenue sports are just along for the ride. Penn State is obviously doing great in wrestling and I don't see that changing near term. Wrestlers go to Penn State to be champions in college and beyond in world freestyle. With expanded rosters and scholarships, the depth at Penn State is awesome. Best coaches, best workout partners, full scholarships, NLWC (and its FUN)... 5 for 5 isn't causing the logjam. Expanded roster and scholarships (and revenue share and NIL) are. 4 for 5 wouldn't relieve the weight competitions. Having 14-15 All-Americans (potential) and only 10 weights makes competition inevitable. First world problems...
that is how I see it... a minor league system for professional sports. The edu part is no longer part of the picture.
 

Wrestleknownothing

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7 years of college down the drain ...
Appropriate comment for page 7 of this thread.

Speaking of which - it looks like ASU's Kyler Larkin, who was a fourth year freshman this past season, Columbia's Joe Curtis (three mission years), and Wisconsin's Braxton Amos (deferment, Oly shirt, red shirt) will be the last of the seven year guys.

Unless we can get some military deferments to wrestle. Or early grad high school nerds to gray shirt twice. I obviously have a hope for the latter.