In this second salute to seniors, GoBlackKnights.com pays tribute to the two members of the senior class who have been at West Point the longest, the two "redshirt seniors" on the team. Note that the varsity letters listed with the players names are through the end of the 2013 season.

Redshirting has become a common practice for most teams in Division 1 football, especially since the NCAA allowed freshmen to participate in varsity sports in 1972. Redshirting refers to the practice of delaying an athlete's participation in a sport in order to lengthen his or her period of eligibility from 4 to 5 years, providing freshmen the opportunity to get a head start on their academics and practice with the team for a year before competing at varsity level.

This allows many players to spread their academic load out over 5 years, reducing the amount of time spent in classes during a season, and it also allows those who finish in 4 years to participate in sports as graduate students.

The Service Academies are generally not able to redshirt in the same manner because of legislative requirements that cadets and midshipmen complete their course of study in 4 years unless barring mitigating circumstances. Some people have argued that the prep schools provide the equivalent of redshirting, but there are important differences.

The coursework taken at USMAPS does not count toward graduation and the NCAA prohibits Cadet Candidates from practicing with the Army team or even having significant interaction with players or coaches. From the NCAA perspective the prep schools are considered more an extension of high school than the start of college, and the NCAA allows other schools to recruit athletes from the prep schools, something they are not allowed to do with redshirt freshmen at other schools. Troy Calhoun recently suggested that AFA should be allowed to extend the curriculum to 9 semesters in order to allow them to redshirt, but those kinds of suggestions are generally not acceptable to Congress or the general public.

There are a few exceptions to the limitations on redshirting at the service academies, the most common being medical redshirting, which requires a waiver from the NCAA. The NCAA allows the waiver when an athlete is injured in the first third of a season and does not return to play in the last half. At the service academies, the cadet or midshipman must have also missed classes that prevent him from completing the course of study in four years.

Maples qualified for a medical redshirt after his season ending injury in the Stanford game of 2013. He dropped out of West Point in the spring of 2014 to complete his rehabilitation, which delayed his graduation until December of this year. Hailing from Philadelphia, Maples was one of Rich Ellerson's first recruits in 2009 and attended USMAPS before joining the Army team in 2010.

The product of Philadelphia (Pa.) is the only member of the team to have played in a bowl game after finishing the 2010 season as the 6th leading rusher with 208 yards on 47 carries. He also established his credentials as a receiver that year, hauling in a 34 yard TD pass from Trent Steelman against Duke.

Maples currently ranks 6th in career rushing yards at Army, with 2950 yards in 479 attempts for a 6.0 yards per carry average. In 2012 he became the third Army running back to have back-to-back thousand-yard seasons. Maples also has also caught 18 passes for 296 career yards

Maples was selected for the Doak Walker and Maxwell Trophy watch lists this year and was a pre-season selection for the All Independent team, but the Monken/Davis version of the triple option gives fewer opportunities to slotbacks; so Maples has accumulated just 253 yards in 40 attempts going into the Navy game this season.

Our second "redshirt senior" arrived at his status by an even more unusual route. Kough was not a medical redshirt, but missed the 2011 season when he dropped out of West Point for a year after his father died, making him eligible this year and pushing his graduation date back to 2015.

Kough came to West Point from Rancho Cucamonga in California with a stopover at USMAPS. He was another member of Ellerson's first 2009 recruiting class.

Kough started off his career at Army in more typical fashion, relegated to the JV team in his plebe year of 2010. After dropping out of West Point the following year, Kough returned to win a starting role on the 2012 team and was one of only 7 players to start all 12 games that year. Kough was 7th on the team in total tackles in 2012 with 42 and second in tackles-for-loss with 9.5 including 1.5 sacks and 3 quarterback hurries.

He appeared in all 12 games in 2013 with 10 starts and led the team in tackles-for-loss with 8, including 3 sacks and was credited with one pass breakup and a quarterback hurry.

Kough was also a pre-season selection to the All Independent team, but with the arrival of the new coaching staff, Kough has dropped into a reserve role on the team with just 8 appearances in the first 11 games and a total of 2 tackles going into the Navy game.