Turner Still Eligible to Redshirt

At this point he's a lock to redshirt unless someone gets hurt.

we have problems in the secondary but I think if this kid works hard and learns how to read a WR and tackle he might be the next good one for us.

I had really hoped he would play this year, but the redshirt will definitely pay dividends down the road.

Glad to see this one get cleared up. I really hope they don't play him; no point in wasting a year of eligibility for half a season.

I hope we do not need to play him. That means we need to stay healthy at corner and play decently well at our #2 corner spot. I hope that happens. 4 solid years of Turner would be better than 3 solid years and half a year of going through the motions and not fully understanding the defense.

what we need are players now. his 5th year would be 2013. screw that. by then we will have tons of 4 and 5 star recruits. now we got bubpkis and if any one can help, including true freshman, i say burn their red shirt and get out there and make some tackles. go blue!!

If Turner is not ready to play, that is fine -- don't play him. But we desperately need another good person in the secondary and most of our toughest games are coming up. If he could turn a 7-5 season this year into an 8-4 or 9-3 season, it is unfair to the rest of the team (especially the seniors) to hold him back. They all have worked extremely hard over the past 8-9 months to get ready for this season and they have put their trust in the coaches that they will do their best to win each game. If Turner is ready to play this week and if he would be a significant improvement over Cissoko/Floyd, he should play. He could play in a total of seven games and might be the difference in us winning one or more of them, including OSU. Also, it is a mistake to assume that by redshirting a player you will necessarily get an extra year with him. If Turner is a superstar, there is a reasonable chance he will go pro before using all 4 years of eligibility. That is all I hear about Warren -- that we might lose him at the end of this year. I don't know if we will or not, but if Turner is the same or higher caliber as Warren, we will have at least the same risk with Turner. Alternatively, if Turner is not a superstar, we should be able to recruit an equally good player to replace him by the end of his normal senior season. Bottom line: you redshirt a player when you have enough skill and depth at a position that you can afford to without materially impacting the current season. If you cannot say that, you should not redshirt the player. It is true that the later in the season it gets, the more a redshirt makes sense. That is simply because, as each game passes, it is less likely one player is going to materially impact the current season. But if Turner would be the difference in us winning or losing one or two games this season, he should play. We are 4-1 and have a good chance of being at least 8-4 and going to a New Year's Day bowl game. Not playing Turner if he is ready and if he would be a significant improvement over the status quo would be unfair to the rest of the team and might not even get you anything down the road anyway.

then he should redshirt. If he's the difference between 5-7 and 6-6, that's a completely different thing. Given the overall lack of quality depth in our secondary, you have to assume he's just way behind the minimum skill level he needs to get on the field. Some have tried to compare him to Woodson in terms of potential, but CW played in all 13 games as a pure freshman so that comparison doesn't appear to be all that accurate. It's hard to believe there was less talent in front of CW than there is in front of JT.