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Roster limits in small college sports put athletes on the chopping block while coaches search for answers

By EDDIE PELLS, AP National Writer

Helping athletes find college scholarships was never easy, but in a way, it was at least predictable. There have always been players competing for a reasonably well-defined number of roster spots, some including scholarships, some not.

This year, all those calculations were messed up, in part because of the fallout from the NCAA’s $2.8 billion antitrust settlement.

Liam Barrett, executive director of the U.S. Athletic Scholarship Recruiting Service, said it was no surprise that a soccer player called last week to tell him his place on a Atlantic 10 Conference school was gone.

That player will enter a transfer portal that is likely to double in size to as many as 1,600 football players, many like him being cut from teams by coaches facing dwindling roster sizes and uncertainty about the future.

“It’s just going to make it a lot more difficult for someone who’s not even in the college system yet,” Barrett said in explaining the cascading impact that the new college roster limits have on secondary school prospects.

Many schools were busy leading up to Wednesday’s deadline for the new National Signing Day for “non-profit” sports – everything outside of football and basketball – trying to figure out how many spots they will have to offer for the 2025-2026 school year.

This is happening because the regulation that clears the way for schools to pay their players also dictates new roster limits, forcing athletic departments to reinvent how teams — from the largest (football) to the smallest ( golf) – are constituted.

“I’ve heard about recruits and prospective recruits … who haven’t signed yet and they’ve gotten a tough phone call,” Minnesota women’s volleyball coach Keegan Cook said. “It’s brutal. It’s really tough because now a roster spot is really a limited commodity, for lack of a better word, where it wasn’t before.

Higher roster limits won’t necessarily mean more players

On the surface, the terms of the House settlement — the agreement between the plaintiffs, the NCAA and the largest college conferences that reshapes college sports — look like a boon for college athletes.

Purse limits (e.g., 85 for football and exactly 9.9 for men’s wrestling) have been removed and replaced with roster limits (105 for football and 30 for wrestling). If a school chooses, it can offer scholarships to every player on a team.

However, it will cost an exorbitant amount of money. Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel suggested that if his athletic department decided to fund scholarships for every available spot, educational costs under the new rules would add $29 million to annual expenses already expected to increase by about $21 million to pay for new athletes’ income. sharing of provisions in the regulations.

We will therefore have to make choices. Will schools give scholarships to all 105 players on their football team? If so, will they make cuts elsewhere? Or will they continue to ask boosters and fans for more money to offset the growing costs?

The model of small sports will change

Most of the smaller, so-called Olympic sports have been operating in a different world for a long time. For example, some split their 9.9 scholarships and distribute partial aid to, say, 20 players. They then add depth with walk-on athletes, some hoping to get a scholarship in the future.

Under the new system, some schools might choose to eliminate one or two sports entirely. Others will reduce staff sizes, whether by choice or because the new staff limits actually make them smaller.

In wrestling, for example, the regulations provide for a limit of 30 athletes. Some of the top programs in the country have as many as 35 wrestlers on their team, many of whom pay their own way.

“Wrestling can provide college access to so many young men and women who otherwise would not have this opportunity,” said Mike Moyer, executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association. “Any time we start to limit opportunities, it’s always unfortunate.”

Wisconsin athletic director Chris McIntosh estimated his campus sports would lose between 80 and 100 athletes by the time the changes come into play for the 2025-2026 school year.

Nebraska AD Troy Dannen told Huskeronline he is determined not to cut scholarships or athletics, which is a $200 million operation at Nebraska. He asks coaches and other administrators to start thinking outside the box.

“Is there a better way to distribute? » he said.

Minnesota eliminated three men’s sports — indoor track and field, tennis and gymnastics — during the pandemic, easing the pain.

“This move, looking back, seems really strategic right now,” Gophers AD Mark Coyle said.

Football gets special treatment as a money maker

Underlying the entire college sports model is the reality that football, with the help of men’s basketball, generates millions in revenue that funds every other sport on a typical campus.

The SEC helped its 16 schools answer some questions this fall by announcing it would keep the 85 scholarship limit intact for 2025, while allowing teams to fill the other 20 spots with alternates. The 105 roster spots would actually constitute a net loss, since the average roster size of major high school football teams exceeds 120.

Last spring, it was reported that the SEC would limit swimming numbers to 22, eight fewer than the new limit. Given that women’s swim teams are currently limited to 14 scholarships and men’s to 9.9, the new cap, if true, could significantly increase the number of scholarships for these teams, but also reduce roster sizes which exceeded 40 swimmers in some cases.

All of these choices create the possibility that the age of the wandering athlete — the scrappy grinders who do it for love of the game, the school, or both — is coming to an end. The chances of developing peak athletes could also be lost.

“It’s like we don’t care if you’re an alternate, there’s no room for you on the roster,” said Steve Roush, executive director of the California Local Swimming Committee. South. “This could have devastating effects on our numbers at the college level. »

Waiting for the consequences: the American Olympic teams (and others)

One of the least understood dynamics of American sports is the outsized impact of college athletics on the number of medals won by the United States every four years at the Summer Olympics.

The world’s most dominant Olympic team (the United States led the medals in Paris with 126) got 67 percent of its athletes from the NCAA pipeline.

Reducing the number of players in collegiate Olympic sports programs could ultimately harm American prospects, as well as the overall quality of the Olympic movement itself (about 8.5% of athletes not representing the United States also competed in NCAA sports).

“There’s a lot of concern about the impact this is going to have on Olympic sports,” said Rich Bender, executive director of USA Wrestling, who is also a board member of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. “It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to think that if the resource pool is significantly reduced, the athletic department probably isn’t considering cutting spending on football and basketball. So where are you going?

Best case scenario is a massive change, but no fewer spots overall

Even with some dire predictions, experts aren’t all pessimistic. Some see the lost opportunities for fringe athletes at big schools as a chance for them to break into smaller programs and actually get playing time.

Others believe colleges feel a deep connection to Olympic sports.

“The good news is there’s been a lot of awareness: ‘Hey, it’s not cool to cut programs,’” Bender said.

Most see more stability coming in 2026 or 2027, once the House rules are finalized and schools, conferences and the NCAA settle on the numbers.

But for the upcoming school year, uncertainty reigns. As Dannen, the Nebraska athletic director, said: “There are 100 questions I don’t have the answers to. »

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AP Sports writers Dave Campbell in Minneapolis and Steve Megargee in Milwaukee contributed.

The Associated Press contributed to this article