The Death of the Walk-On?

[MCMLXXX]

New NCAA Roster Limits: The Death of the Walk-On Athlete

[UNTLifer]

1 minute ago, MCMLXXX said:

New NCAA Roster Limits: The Death of the Walk-On Athlete

So as not to shoot the messenger, @MCMLXXX, here's my vote:

[GMG24]

15 minutes ago, MCMLXXX said:

New NCAA Roster Limits: The Death of the Walk-On Athlete

Last conversation I had with the Division 1 coaches who came through, they believe walk-ons may still exist and simply be funded through NIL.  That was before this article was released so that could change, but as of a few weeks ago, that was the plan that seemed to be floating around.

[Mean Green 93-98]

It seems "Death of the Walk-On" is burying the lede.

Quote

The House v. NCAA settlement has captured national headlines for its transformative impacts on college athletics. The preliminarily approved settlement is scheduled to revolutionize the NCAA’s structure starting in the 2025-26 season, as colleges will, for the first time, be allowed to compensate their athletes directly. The language in the settlement enables schools to opt into a revenue-sharing agreement, allowing each athletic department to pay their athletes from a pool of $22,000,000 annually for their participation on athletics teams. 

This $22M is apparently in addition to NIL funds available to players.

We'll see how much "revenue sharing" occurs in all this.  Pretty much regardless, the gap between "haves" and "have-nots" continues to grow.

[keith]

Maybe I’m missing something.  Wouldn’t the roster limit be good for the have-nots as the haves cannot hoard players that will now need to find home on have-nots teams and potentially improve the talent level and competitiveness of the have-nots?

[Mean Green 93-98]

4 minutes ago, keith said:

Maybe I’m missing something.  Wouldn’t the roster limit be good for the have-nots as the haves cannot hoard players that will now need to find home on have-nots teams and potentially improve the talent level and competitiveness of the have-nots?

The thing is, every one of the 105 players on each team's roster will now be a scholarship player.  So we can't offer someone like, say, a Mason Fine, who would be a walk-on at OU and tell him he can be a scholarship player for us.  Because now schools like OU will have extra scholarships to give, not to mention the additional money they will now be allowed to pay players with amounts we will not be capable of matching.

[keith]

9 hours ago, Mean Green 93-98 said:

The thing is, every one of the 105 players on each team's roster will now be a scholarship player.  So we can't offer someone like, say, a Mason Fine, who would be a walk-on at OU and tell him he can be a scholarship player for us.  Because now schools like OU will have extra scholarships to give, not to mention the additional money they will now be allowed to pay players with amounts we will not be capable of matching.

I think P4 schools will generally be able to lure players they want away from G6 schools regardless of scholarship status.  There will always be unique situations, but I was thinking in the aggregate.

If the average roster size is 128 and has to go to 105, that's 23 fewer P4 athletes per team.  Assuming 67 or so P4 schools, that's 1,541 athletes that would have previously been on a P4 team that will trickle down to a G6 team.  Assuming players 106 through 128 on P4 teams are worthy of being on a P4 team, that's a lot of P4 talent that will be looking for new homes.

I realize that not every P4 athlete is better than a G5 athlete...we've seen it ourselves where a P4 transfer is unable to beat out a player already on our roster, but based on the numbers alone, there's got to be some leveling of the talent across the P4/G6 landscape, no? 

[Mean Green 93-98]

2 hours ago, keith said:

I think P4 schools will generally be able to lure players they want away from G6 schools regardless of scholarship status.  There will always be unique situations, but I was thinking in the aggregate.

If the average roster size is 128 and has to go to 105, that's 23 fewer P4 athletes per team.  Assuming 67 or so P4 schools, that's 1,541 athletes that would have previously been on a P4 team that will trickle down to a G6 team.  Assuming players 106 through 128 on P4 teams are worthy of being on a P4 team, that's a lot of P4 talent that will be looking for new homes.

I realize that not every P4 athlete is better than a G5 athlete...we've seen it ourselves where a P4 transfer is unable to beat out a player already on our roster, but based on the numbers alone, there's got to be some leveling of the talent across the P4/G6 landscape, no? 

When it comes to walk-ons, current P4 walk-ons are not typically better athletes than current scholarship players at G5 schools.  So those extra players being trimmed from P4 rosters is not really a leveling of talent; it's them getting rid of players that were probably never going to make the depth chart (much less the field) anyway.  It's the worst of the walk-ons.  And those are players we almost always could have gotten with a scholarship offer, anyway.  If we wanted them, which we probably didn't.

But bringing down the overall roster size is a very small part of the picture, IMO.  Now those P4 schools get an extra 20 scholarship players to hoard up on their roster, and they get to pay them out of a $22 million pool on top of NIL.  Now how do we compete with that?

[NT80]

15 hours ago, Mean Green 93-98 said:

The thing is, every one of the 105 players on each team's roster will now be a scholarship player.  So we can't offer someone like, say, a Mason Fine, who would be a walk-on at OU and tell him he can be a scholarship player for us.  Because now schools like OU will have extra scholarships to give, not to mention the additional money they will now be allowed to pay players with amounts we will not be capable of matching.

No, 105 players will be allowed on a FBS roster (not 128 like now) and all 105 can all be on scholarship, but it’s not required an FBS program make them all scholarship spots.  

If the AAC only requires 85 scholarships  then the rest can be walk-on or non-scholarship.

[Mean Green 93-98]

18 minutes ago, NT80 said:

No, 105 players will be allowed on a FBS roster (not 128 like now) and all 105 can all be on scholarship, but it’s not required an FBS program make them all scholarship spots.  

If the AAC only requires 85 scholarships  then the rest can be walk-on or non-scholarship.

My point was about P4 schools.  They will have all 105 on scholarship, and all 105 will be paid beyond that.

Meaning we're going to have a much harder shot at landing those players.

Edited October 31 by Mean Green 93-98

[NT80]

1 hour ago, Mean Green 93-98 said:

My point was about P4 schools.  They will have all 105 on scholarship, and all 105 will be paid beyond that.

Meaning we're going to have a much harder shot at landing those players.

Yes P4s will fund all of their roster spots.  
But the thing P4s can’t offer to all 105 players is significant playing time.  

We could offer a player like Chandler Morris, coming back from injury or on the depth chart, perhaps a better opportunity to play sooner. 

Edited October 31 by NT80

[Mean Green 93-98]

2 hours ago, NT80 said:

Yes P4s will fund all of their roster spots.  
But the thing P4s can’t offer to all 105 players is significant playing time.  

We could offer a player like Chandler Morris, coming back from injury or on the depth chart, perhaps a better opportunity to play sooner. 

We could have done the same under the previous rules.  I'm not sure what point you're making here.

[NT80]

2 hours ago, Mean Green 93-98 said:

We could have done the same under the previous rules.  I'm not sure what point you're making here.

Exactly, that's the point.  Nothing has really changed for us.  The reason we can attract over-rostered P4 players is they want "playing opportunity" that we can provide.

I was responding to your point of "Meaning we're going to have a much harder shot at landing those players."

 

Edited October 31 by NT80

[Mean Green 93-98]

13 minutes ago, NT80 said:

Exactly, that's the point.  Nothing has really changed for us.  The reason we can attract over-rostered P5 players is they want "playing opportunity" that we can provide.

I was responding to your point of "Meaning we're going to have a much harder shot at landing those players."

 

I'm not sure how you responded to my point.  Yes, we will be able to land transfers who, for whatever reason, weren't working out at P4 schools.  Like Jace Ruder, Marcus Trice, Chandler Morris, and a bunch of others we've had over the years.

I was talking about competing directly against P4s for recruits for whom P4s could previously only offer walk-on spots.

The P4s previously only had 85 scholarship players.  Now they get 105.  Plus they get to pay all their players big bucks on top of having all their tuition, fees, room, and board taken care of.  It's going to be much more difficult landing those extra 20 than it was when P4s could only enroll them as walk-ons.

In other words (generally speaking):

P4 scholarship offer > G5 scholarship offer > P4 walk-on offer

[NT80]

19 minutes ago, Mean Green 93-98 said:

I'm not sure how you responded to my point.  Yes, we will be able to land transfers who, for whatever reason, weren't working out at P4 schools.  Like Jace Ruder, Marcus Trice, Chandler Morris, and a bunch of others we've had over the years.

I was talking about competing directly against P4s for recruits for whom P4s could previously only offer walk-on spots.

The P4s previously only had 85 scholarship players.  Now they get 105.  Plus they get to pay all their players big bucks on top of having all their tuition, fees, room, and board taken care of.  It's going to be much more difficult landing those extra 20 than it was when P4s could only enroll them as walk-ons.

In other words (generally speaking):

P4 scholarship offer > G5 scholarship offer > P4 walk-on offer

We weren't going to win head to head initially for players with a P4 scholarship offers, and sometimes not even for walkons.  20 more ships per P4 is not that much impact considering how many players there are.  We get homesick kids and kids that just want a change and more access to the field.  It's the P4 players #85-105 that we can still target and who will soon tire of being just practice fodder at a P4, even on scholarship.  NT offers better opportunity for those players.   

Just think also of all the FCS, Dll, JUCO, etc level players there are too we can still attract.   I believe Morris has a good eye for transfers that have interest in us.  He just needs to overhaul the defensive side for next season.