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Nov 22, 2025; Salt Lake City, Utah, USA; Kansas State Wildcats running back Joe Jackson (4) reacts after running for a touchdown against the Utah Utes during the first half at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Rob Gray-Imagn Images | Rob Gray-Imagn Images
Note
I’m using the same introduction for all of these articles. If you read any of the articles below, you’ve already read it. I’d recommend skipping ahead to the table.
Quarterback
I’m going to move forward with the idea that the new “age-based” NCAA eligibility model will stick around in some form once all the legal challenges are exhausted. It makes sense, and I’m not sure the schools are interested in the constant court battles over eligibility. I get the feeling that some high-up folks went to check on the college athletics golden goose, and while it wasn’t dead, it was missing some feathers. This age-based model is an attempt to limit some long-term financial damage from disillusioned fans (mostly middle-aged and older) who were once the backbone of college athletics. It feels like this is the first bone they’ve thrown the die-hard fans who care about this sort of stuff in a long while.
I wrote an article explaining the age-based model here. The basic idea is that athletes get 5 seasons of eligibility if they enroll in school by age 19. It prevents 27-year-old Euro pros from dominating college basketball as true freshmen and does away with the archaic redshirt rules in both football and basketball. In theory, it also gets around the arbitrary NCAA eligibility “waiver” system, but I’ll believe it when I see it in action. The schools like hard-and-fast rules right up until the point when they think they should get an exception from said rules.
Anyways, this is how the new “age-based” model affects the football team moving forward. I’ll go through the roster by position group, and at the end I’ll put it all together into a coherent roster with a bunch of information beyond what you find on other sites.
So, without further ado….
Running Back
| # | Name | Pos | Recruiting Class | HS/JuCo/Portal | Home State | High School | HS Rating | Juco/Port | JuCo/Port Rating | Seasons at KSU | Eligibility Remaining | Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | Jay Harris | RB | 2022 | DII/Portal | Missouri | Timberland | NR | Oregon | 3*(86.2) | 0 | 1 | Jay Harris |
| 4 | Joe Jackson | RB | 2023 | HS | Florida | Ridge Community | 3*(88) | NA | NA | 3 | 2 | Joe Jackson |
| 20 | Rodney Fields Jr. | RB | 2024 | Portal | Oklahoma | Del City | 3*(86) | OK State | 3*(86.5) | 0 | 3 | Rodney Fields Jr. |
| 31 | Monterrio Elston Jr. | RB | 2025 | HS | Arkansas | Parkview Magnet | 3*(84.8) | NA | NA | 1 | 4 | Monterrio Elston Jr. |
| 24 | Tanner West | RB | 2026 | HS | Texas | Jordan | 3*(85.4) | NA | NA | 0 | 5 | Tanner West |
Thoughts
Unlike quarterback, where Avery Johnson found an extra season of eligibility, the Wildcats had no such luck at running back. Every running back other than true freshman Tanner West started their career with a redshirt.
Speaking of Tanner West, he’s the only one this might affect. It’s a long shot, but one thing the new rule does is change the special team equation. In the past, players could play in 3 games while still maintaining a redshirt. Now that redshirts are a relic of the past, it’s all hands on deck when it comes to special teams. Now true freshmen can compete for a position on a special team unit without any consideration for eligibility. If, for example, West is the best gunner on the kick coverage team, he’s not “wasting” a season covering kicks. In a way, it helps fill the gap left by the loss of traditional walk-ons on special teams.
Freshmen could, in theory, keep Kansas State from having to use starters on something like the kick return or coverage team. If my memory serves me correctly, Kansas’s oft-injured, presumed starter at running back, Dylan Edwards, went down with an ankle injury attempting to return the first kickoff of the season and, strangely enough, could only compete in 4 games, the specific game limit to retain a redshirt under the old eligibility model. One wonders if his recovery would have been expedited under the new rules…a mystery for the ages, I suppose.
The Wildcats could avoid such a fate by allowing one of their dynamic freshman skill players to return kicks in 2026 and save Joe Jackson or Rodney Fields Jr. as a break-in-case-of-emergency fallback.
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