| REDSHIRT | Hold aside for a year, as a college athlete |
| REDSHIRTS | Holds aside for a year, in college sports |
| SATYR | Was seated for a year as a deity of the woodlands |
| SHIRT | Hold aside, as a college athlete, to extend his eligibility |
| TERP | Len Bias, as a college athlete |
| HOYA | Patrick Ewing, as a college athlete |
| RESERVE | Hold aside |
| REDSHIRTED | Like a college athlete kept from games in order to develop skills |
| PRO | What a college athlete might dream of turning |
| BOLTFROMTHEBLUE | To flee a college athlete is an unexpected occurrence (4,4,3,4) |
| RENEW | Order for another year, as a magazine |
| EDWARDVIII | King for less than a year as he stepped down to marry Wallis Simpson; the only British sovereign to abdicate voluntarily (6,1,1,1,1) |
| PAY | Minimal amount a year as fee |
| LEEWAY | Director Spike with a year as latitude (6) |
| OVER | So last year, as a fad |
| BYRIGHT | Clever about start of year as a result of entitlement |
| THEY | American Dialect Society's 2015 word of the year, as a singular |
| EON | A billion years, as a unit |
| GIRLHOOD | A woman's years as a child (8) |
| SEXILES | Banishes, as a college roommate during a hookup, in a modern portmanteau |
