He could easily animate it and not need to add any extra polys.
With just 26 faces
-swishswish-
I don't think "easily" the right word for what animating it would be. The animations would either
A: be really clunky
or
B: be incredibly complex
hell, probably even
X: A+B+C
Since cloth is such an open material for animation in order to make it look right wouldn't he need to make an animation for looking up, down, rotating right, rotating left, jumping, crouching, walking, walking left, walking right, so on and so forth?
Unless of course by "easily animate it and not need to add any extra polys" you were just referring to the tiny bit where he wouldn't actually have to add anymore polygons to it in order to animate it.