"From the tech­ni­cal part of the rules, I was kind of expec­ting that," John­son said of the ruling. "But I thought we had a good argu­ment on why he deser­ved one.

"They say you have to have epi­so­des or inju­ries or rea­sons that cause you to miss two sea­sons and it plainly says in the rules that a redshirt is not one of them. Plainly, the injury cau­sed him to miss 2009.

"But we (con­ten­ded) that you don't count his (redshirt) year. He was going to make the team as a fresh­man. He was hurt pretty sig­ni­fi­cantly about a week before we chose the team. He hurt his ankle. That pre­ven­ted him from actually (pla­ying as a true freshman).