I guess this is where we get into a philosophical discussion on how Wake Forest builds their program. Wake has prided itself on being a school that gives Freshmen the opportunity to redshirt their first year, this allows undersized players to get bigger and learn the system prior to having to play. When we have not redshirted players, its been more about need, I am thinking guys like Carney, Wofford and Hartman, who were thrust in due to lack of depth at the position. For the majority of Wake players, this redshirting is extremely helpful, because many of the recruits who come in are not ready to play at an ACC level. This 4 game redshirt rule is also helpful in allowing them to play and still be able to develop. We RS them now, so we get the most production we can later on.
HOWEVER, certain recruits do not need to redshirt to get up to the level to compete (lets say for example Sage and Bates and maybe Dortch) guys who we believe could have played their first year. If we wanted to the best players on the field that season regardless of seniority, these players may have made the depth charts. One issue we are running into though is that we are not getting the pay off of that seniority with players leaving early. Bates and Dortch both left after RS Sophmore seasons, and now potentially we could be looking at the same thing with Sage. If the point of RS is to get the most production out of these players, then in these instances we are missing out by not playing them as true freshmen. Watching Greene against Cuse, I saw a player that was fast and made tacklers miss. He looks like an ACC caliber WR right now. Even with our depth, he looks like the 4th best WR on the team. Could he have made a difference in the Louisville game? We can´t say, but I am for putting the bet players on the field regardless of seniority or potential production later on. Win as many games as you can that season, because you never know what will happen in the future.
tl;dr some dudes dont need to redshirt, and sometimes we miss out on production by redshirting studs