Redshirt seniors used to be the norm in college football. Sometimes they were known as “super seniors” or graduate players.
It used to be that freshmen would redshirt in year one, which would save one year of eligibility to use after they graduated as seniors. There were, of course, players who left for the NFL before that. Some players committed to one school early on in their college careers and then transferred to another, but they would lose a year of eligibility in the process. They also rarely transferred more than once.
Those were the “good old days” at this point, because now we’re talking about a world where the transfer portal allows a college player to be at a different school every year.
We’re also talking about seventh-year seniors, which will be the case for linebacker Darius Snow in 2026.
Snow, a three-star recruit from the class of 2020, committed to the Texas Longhorns on Thursday out of the transfer portal. He spent the past six seasons at Michigan State, which, to his credit, is extremely rare nowadays.
