No, Your Favorite Husker Didn’t Suddenly Lose a Year of Eligibility

Nebraska is changing its system of classifying roster years. It’s meant to better reflect the five-in-five model the NCAA adopted in June.

Riley Van Poppel is now considered a senior instead of a redshirt junior — but “senior” no longer means the end of the road. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

The times in college athletics, they are a-changing, and so is Nebraska Athletics’ nomenclature for players’ eligibility status.

On the Huskers’ official rosters, the term “redshirt” is being phased out, thanks to the NCAA’s new age-based five-in-five model.

Five years, five available seasons. Sounds simple enough, but there’s a potentially jarring wrinkle for Nebraska fans across multiple sports: Any Husker who has redshirted at some point is being given a new designation.

Sometime in the last several days, redshirt freshmen on the football roster became known as sophomores. Redshirt sophomores became juniors. And so on.

It’s the same thing with men’s basketball, and more sports will follow.

But nobody’s losing eligibility. It’s just a new way of classifying things.

It will take some getting used to, but in most respects, the new way is a clearer way. What matters now is eligibility remaining. A key point to remember is that anyone now listed as a senior still has a fifth year at his or her disposal.

For some seniors, such as Cam Lenhardt, that fifth year became an option only by virtue of the NCAA’s switch to the five-in-five model in June. For others, such as Riley Van Poppel, a fifth year had always been possible due to having taken a redshirt.

The NCAA's switch to a five-in-five model in June means Cam Lenhardt will have a year of eligibility remaining after 2026. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

Two 2023 defensive line recruits, two different routes to “senior” status — and until only quite recently, two different roster years. That’s now been changed. Van Poppel is a redshirt junior no more, and it makes perfect sense that he and Lenhardt are now viewed identically: Each is a fourth-year player with an option for a fifth.

What about players who are truly in their final season of eligibility? They now carry the label “Fifth Year” (or “Sixth Year” in less common cases like that of Owen Stoudmire). A dozen players on the Huskers’ football roster have these post-senior designations as they head into the 2026 season.

All spring and summer, we’ve become accustomed to hearing about guys like “sophomore Mekhi Nelson” and “junior Kwinten Ives.” Don’t be alarmed if and when you see them described instead as a junior and a senior. Again, they haven’t lost a year. Nor has anyone in Nebraska’s array of men’s and women’s sports.

A new notation atop the Huskers’ online football makes it so very simple: “roster years are listed as follows: freshman; sophomore; junior; senior; fifth/sixth.”

On one hand, this is no more complex than counting to five. But on the other, ingrained thought and language patterns aren’t easy to rewire in an instant. As time passes, however, it’s all bound to come more naturally as rosters contain fewer and fewer former redshirts — and eventually none at all.

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