This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Anyone else notice that during Saturday's 64-0 glorified scrimmage against Savannah State, that a bunch of players who hadn't gotten into a game all year played against the Tigers?

I noticed that offensive linemen Chase Larson, Brian Rawlinson and Parker Dawe played, along with more noticeable position players such as running back A.J. Moore, quarterbacks McCoy Hill and Hunter Moore. There may have been more.

Playing for even one down means those guys burned their redshirt years. It was similar to last year, when freshman quarterback Billy Green got in the game late against Idaho State. Green is now a sophomore at Weber State, although he could be a redshirt freshman.

Not really caring about any of the details of the biggest mismatch in stadium history, I asked BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall if he has philosophically moved away from redshirting players.

As the game showed, he said he has, "as much as possible."

No surprise there.

BYU basketball coach Dave Rose is pretty much doing the same thing — opting this season to redshirt just one player, freshman Jordan Chatman, despite a bulky roster. And I suspect Chatman is being redshirted because he's got a pair of balky knees and just recently returned home from a mission, not because of the roster size.

Mendenhall said he's come to the conclusion that redshirting his players has hurt their opportunities to play in the National Football League, because most of them now are going on two-year LDS Church missions and are older and less attractive to NFL teams when they finish at BYU.

"So here is the way that I could say it now, is with our missions the way they are, and really what we are finding, especially with the NFL, once someone is past 25 years old, their marketability starts to go down," Mendenhall said.

He also noted that if he had his druthers, players would leave on their missions in January.

"So really what we would like to do is time the missions out really with as many players leaving in January as possible, because what that does is it allows us to play them [their first year out of high school] and then they get back in January [from their missions]. So it is kind of the best of both worlds. For those that want to go on and play [pro football], their age is just right, and if they come back in January they still have the developmental chance to not have to redshirt when they get back [to football] in August."

So, don't expect to see more guys who have been affiliated with the program for six or seven years moving forward.

"It really has been a philosophical shift. It has taken me awhile to get to that point. But now, after doing it, I think it is just better — better for BYU. That's the major market we are in. Eighty percent of our players the last three years have gone [on missions]. So with the sheer volume, I think that is ultimately the best — now after looking back at it all these years. So we are moving in that direction. Not every time, but as many times as we can," Mendenhall said.