Ryker Rushton made a decision last year that may not have initially made sense to some.
A freshman at Palm Desert High School, Rushton repeated eighth grade with a year of homeschooling. The move was intentional and was all part of a larger plan for Rushton, an A-student, to be physically prepared to play four years of varsity football and benefit from graduating a year later than he originally would have.
Now, at 6-foot-1 and 215 pounds, Rushton starts at middle linebacker for Palm Desert, a school that has had few freshman starters over the years. According to past and present coaches, Rushton is believed to be just the fifth freshman to start at the school since 1994, when Pat Blackburn began coaching.
“The benefits of playing varsity football
as a freshman have already been huge,” said Rushton, who gained around 15 pounds hitting the gym over the last year. “The challenge has helped me grow so much as a player.”
As more and more star high school players around the country choose to repeat a grade in middle school to enhance their opportunities of benefitting from football beyond high school, the trend has made its way to the Coachella Valley.
“He isn’t your typical freshman,” Palm Desert head coach Rudy Forti said of Rushton. “He came in this season ready to play varsity football.”
Rushton isn’t the only current high school football player in the valley to repeat a grade, or “reclassify,” as it’s called, but he is the most high-profile. He also won’t be the last.
Reclassifying is not new, especially in big football markets like Southern California, Texas and Florida. But it’s becoming even more common largely because of the substantial NIL money that is now available to major college football recruits.
For high school athletes who are young for their age, they can repeat a grade, and with that extra year physically and mentally mature and get reps against older competition and still enroll in college before the age 19 eligibility trigger. With the NCAA’s new “5 for 5” eligibility model, which was implemented this year, athletes have five years to play five seasons, but the eligibility clock starts at 19-years-old.
"It's really common here in Ohio," said longtime La Quinta head coach Dan Armstrong, who retired to the Midwest. "I'm not against it, either. I think it can really benefit some kids, but maybe not everyone. It should be a case-by-case situation."
Reclassifying and repeating a grade is only really a benefit if a student would otherwise be young for his age and only 17 when he graduates from high school. That's the case for Rushton and it was also the case for James Dockery when he graduated from Palm Desert in 2006.
Scholarships and NIL money
Dockery, now the head coach at Indio, later played for four seasons in the NFL. But he was just 165 pounds as a 6-foot-2 17-year-old when he graduated from high school and joined the football team at Oregon State University.
Dockery recalls not being physically ready for what has in recent years become “a grown man’s game,” he said.
College football rosters have since gotten noticeably older, as reported by the Associated Press, with players as old as 31, according to Yahoo! Sports. COVID waivers gave every player an extra year of eligibility and NIL money has incentivized many players who could be pros to stay in college to build their brand, improve their draft stock and still get paid.
That all puts pressure on high school players to be more physically mature for the college game if they eventually want a scholarship and NIL money of their own.
With another year of growing and maturing, Dockery believes he could’ve had even more, perhaps more high-profile scholarship opportunities.
“Without a doubt,” Dockery said. “I would have been so much more prepared to play right away in college.”
Why that matters even more now, in 2026, is because of the large amounts of money available to players who play major college football. Dockery’s cousin, Milan Parris, for example, was given a high six-figure total to play football at the University of Miami.
Parris, Dockery said, is among the players who, like Rushton, reclassified down during middle school.
Understanding the benefits of reclassifying for those who want to participate in collegiate athletics, Dockery and his wife, Andreina, decided to have their two young boys repeat first grade.
Even if the boys decide not to pursue competitive athletics in high school, the benefits, Dockery said, go beyond that.
“We want our boys to be more mature heading into college,” he said. “It’s about mindset and maturity. It’s not for everybody, but there are advantages, both with academics and athletics.”
'It's not for everyone'
There are some high-profile critics of the reclassifying trend.
Among them is ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas, who has pointed to what can sometimes be misplaced parental priorities when it comes to reclassifying.
“Let each parent do what you want to do, that’s fine, do what’s best for your kid,” Bilas told The Washington Post in 2019. “But man, there’s no way that parents are spending as much time sort of facilitating their kids’ academic success as their athletic success.”
Bilas and others have also pointed to a fairness issue that might be created by an older player playing against younger peers.
But there’s clear pushback from parents, including Kyler Rushton, Ryker’s dad, who points out that his son will be playing varsity, against predominantly older players, for at least the first two years of high school.
Ultimately, the Rushtons laid out the pluses and minuses of reclassifying down for Ryker and let him make the decision about whether he wanted to do it. It wasn’t his parents’ decision — it was Ryker’s.
Once he decided to reclassify, Rushton decided to also do homeschool for a year to benefit from the freedom his schedule would then allow for him to work out for several hours each day, after his schoolwork was completed. Being homeschooled allowed Rushton to avoid the negative stigma that lingers around repeating a grade and it allowed Rushton to also utilize the year immediately before high school to physically and mentally prepare for varsity football.
Others may repeat a grade without the freedom to organize their days with the freedom homeschooling allows. That's why the Rushtons believe reclassifying in eighth grade, as opposed to earlier, is the best time to do it.
“Some people are going to not understand and maybe even hate the decision,” said Kyler Rushton, who played football at the University of Utah. “But it’s Ryker’s decision and it’s not for everyone. And it’s OK if other people don’t agree.”
'We're just here to support him'
In a world where 22% of parents, according to one study, believe that their child could be a Division I athlete and 11% believe that their child could be a professional or Olympic athlete, Kyler Rushton is cognizant of the pressure some parents put on their children in today's youth sports.
But, he said, the optics won't stop the Rushtons from supporting their son and assisting him in achieving his goals.
“My goals,” Ryker Rushton said, “are to play at the highest level of football and get my education paid for.”
Kyler Rushton said that his message to parents whose child may be considering reclassifying is that every situation is different and must be considered with nuance. What may make sense for one may not make sense for everyone, he said.
He added that parents need to be realistic and that he and his wife wouldn't have entertained Ryker reclassifying if he wasn't highly driven and independently focused in the pursuit of working toward the ambitious long-term goals that he has for himself.
Kyler Rushton said that it's the child, not the parents, who should be the driver of their own goals, but the parents should in turn assist their children in helping those goals become a reality.
“He has his goals,” Kyler Rushton said, “and we’re just here to support him.
"Anything you can do for your child to help them achieve their goals is, I think, a good thing."
Andrew John covers sports and recreation in the Coachella Valley for The Desert Sun. Email him at andrew.john@desertsun.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Reclassification making high school, college football more of 'grown man's game'
