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Roster limits in small college sports give athletes pause as coaches search for answers

By EDDIE PELLS National Writer AP

Helping athletes find college scholarships was never easy, but in some ways, at least, it was predictable. There have always been players fighting for a reasonably well-defined number of roster spots, some that include scholarships, some that don’t.

This year, all the math was thrown out, part of the fallout from the NCAA’s $2.8 billion antitrust settlement.

Liam Barrett, CEO of USA Sports Scholarship Recruiting, said it wasn’t a surprise when a football player called last week to say his roster spot at an Atlantic 10 Conference school was gone .

That player will enter a transfer portal that will double in size to 1,600 football players, many like him, who are left out of coaching staffs facing shrinking roster sizes and uncertainty about the future .

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

Many schools were busy leading up to Wednesday’s National Signing Day deadline for “non-revenue” sports – everything outside of football and basketball – trying to determine how many spots they will have to offer for the 2025-26 school year.

That’s because the deal that paves the way for schools to pay their players also dictates new roster limits, forcing athletic departments to reimagine how teams are built — from the biggest (football) to the smallest (golf).

“We’ve heard about invitees and future recruits … who haven’t signed that tough call yet,” Minnesota women’s volleyball coach Keegan Cook said. “It’s brutal. It’s really hard 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

At first glance, the terms of the House settlement — the agreement between the plaintiffs, the NCAA and the major college conferences that is reshaping college sports — look like a boon to college athletes.

Scholarship limits (eg, 85 for football and exactly 9.9 for men’s wrestling) were removed and replaced with roster limits (105 for football and 30 for wrestling). If a school wishes, it can offer scholarships to every player on a team.

Doing so, however, will cost an exorbitant amount. Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel suggested that if his athletic department decided to fund scholarships for every available seat, educational costs under the new rules would add $29 million to annual expenses that are already slated to increase by approximately $21 million to pay the new athlete revenue-sharing provisions in the settlement.

So, choices will have to be made. Will schools give scholarships to all 105 players on their football team? If so, will they make cuts elsewhere? Or will boosters and fans continue to ask for more money to cover the rising costs?

The small sports model will change

Most of the smaller, so-called Olympic sports have long operated in a different world. For example, some split their 9.9 scholarships and distribute partial aid to, say, 20 players. Then they add depth with pastor athletes, some hoping to get scholarship help in the future.

In the new system, some schools may choose to eliminate a sport or two altogether. Others will reduce their list sizes, either by choice or because the new list limits actually make them smaller.

In wrestling, for example, the agreement stipulates a limit of 30 athletes. Some of the nation’s top programs have as many as 35 wrestlers on their team, many of whom pay their own way.

“Wrestling can provide access to college for so many young men and women who might not otherwise have that opportunity,” said Mike Moyer, executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association. “Whenever you start limiting opportunities, it’s always unfortunate.”

Wisconsin athletics director Chris McIntosh estimated his campus sports will lose 80 to 100 athletes by the time the changes take effect for the 2025-26 school year.

Nebraska AD Troy Dannen told Huskeronline he is determined not to cut scholarships or sports, 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 allocate?” he said.

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

“This decision, in hindsight, seems really strategic at this point,” Gophers AD Mark Coyle said.

Football gets special treatment as a money maker

Underlying the entire college sports model is the reality that football, along with men’s basketball, produces millions in revenue that fund 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 remaining 20 spots with walk-ons. The 105 roster spots would actually be a net loss, as the average roster size for big-school football teams exceeds 120.

Last spring, there were reports that the SEC would limit swim rosters to 22, which is eight fewer than the new limit. Since women’s swim teams are currently limited to 14 scholarships and men’s to 9.9, the new cap, if true, could dramatically increase the number of scholarships for those teams, but also reduce the size of the rosters that exceeded 40 swimmers in some cases.

All of these choices bring the possibility that the age of the walking athlete—grinders who do it for the love of the game, school, or both—is coming to an end. Chances of developing diamond-in-the-rough athletes could also be missed.

“It’s like, we don’t care if you’re a walker, there’s no place for you on the list,” said Steve Roush, executive director of the Southern California Swimming Local Committee. “This could have devastating effects on our collegiate numbers.”

Awaiting the aftermath: The US Olympic (and other) teams

One of the least understood dynamics in American sports is the huge impact that college athletics has on the number of medals the US wins every four years at the Summer Olympics.

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

The decline in the number of players in collegiate Olympic sports programs could ultimately hurt US prospects, along with the overall quality of the Olympic movement itself (about 8.5% of non-US athletes also competed in NCAA sports).

“There’s a lot of anxiety about the impact this will have on Olympic sports,” said Rich Bender, the executive director of USA Wrestling, who is also on the board of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee. “It doesn’t take much imagination to think that if the pool of resources is drastically reduced, the athletic department probably isn’t thinking about cutting football and basketball expenses. So where are you going?”

Best case scenario is a massive change but not fewer overall seats

Even with some of the gloomy predictions, it’s not all doom and gloom among the experts. Some see the lost opportunities for fringe athletes at bigger schools as a chance for them to enjoy smaller programs and get playing time.

Others believe that colleges feel a deep connection to Olympic sports.

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

Most see more stability in 2026 or 2027, after the House deal is finalized and schools, conferences and the NCAA have locked in the numbers.

For the next school year, however, uncertainty reigns. As Dannen, Nebraska’s 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