How Brent Venables Handles Possible Roster Limits at Oklahoma

The preliminarily approved House v. NCAA settlement could cut average FBS rosters by 23 athletes if passed.

Oklahoma Sooners head coach Brent Venables / Jake Crandall/ Advertiser / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Preparing for unknown possibilities has become part of the job for college football coaches. 

The preliminarily approved House v. NCAA settlement would shake up college athletics even more so than it already has the last few years. The headline from the settlement, which has not been officially approved yet, is that it would allow universities to pay athletes from a pool of $22,000,000 annually through revenue sharing if they opt to do so. That could erase the NIL rat race of which schools have the richest boosters and level the playing field where every program is working with the same amount of cash, similar to a salary cap in most professional sports. 

However, also included within the settlement are new roster limits for all sports, including football. These talks have been ongoing for a while now, and although still uncertain, it’s still something athletic departments must prepare for, especially with signing days and transfer portal openings nearing next month. 

If passed, all of this would begin at the start of the 2025-26 academic year. 

“Everything hasn't passed yet, so I would be a little bit premature,” OU coach Brent Venables said when asked about it during Wednesday’s SEC coaches teleconference. “Certainly we're ready if, in fact, it passes and everything goes through. But as of right now, that is yet to be determined, but we've done everything internally to prepare for that and there will be some potential deadlines that we're going to have to meet, but that's been an ongoing process, really, for the last calendar year to prepare for that day and all of it that entails and how that'll affect our roster.”

College football hasn’t had a roster limit, only a limit on scholarships, which is currently 85 athletes. For football and basketball, all of those players receive full scholarships. However, those scholarship players only make up part an entire football roster, as every program also adds walk-ons who are part of the program but do not receive an athletic scholarship. 

If passed, the new settlement would set a roster limit at 105, all of which would be on full scholarships. For comparison, because of added extra walk-ons, the average roster size for FBS programs during the 2022-23 season was 128.2. The new roster limit would then dwindle average rosters by about 23 athletes. If that 23 number doesn’t seem like much, OU’s 2025 recruiting class currently has 21 commits, so the possible roster reduction would be larger than an average recruiting class. OU's current roster has 127 players.

Venables called the coming changes "carnage" during his Tuesday press conference. He expounded further on those thoughts on Wednesday's SEC call, and how he hopes to arrive at the operative number.

“In regards to what that 105 number looks like, there'll be some potential benchmarks, and the biggest thing for me is just if, in fact, that passes is having to cut several players and basically end their dreams here at the University of Oklahoma,” Venables said. “And that's just a sad day. But that's where we're at in college football, potentially, and my job is to help those players find another landing spot and help them facilitate chasing their dreams.”

As Venables pointed out during his 10-minute time on the teleconference, none of these elements, like roster limits or revenue sharing, are for sure yet. Either way, though, he and the rest of the athletic department must still prepare for what could happen. There’s a timeframe on when things will be approved. Regardless, Venables must still have that in the back of his mind with graduation, signing day, the NFL draft and the transfer portal window looming. 

“There's just a strategy,” Venables said. “There's a strategy in how, a rating system, there's lots of meetings, lots of meetings, lots of evaluation, lots of talking through. I got a great team of people, both in our front office and then with our coaching staff. They're involved in every layer of that and preparing for graduation and for early entry into the NFL Draft, potentially, and certainly, knowing that there's going to be some level of attrition, some of that will be by design, and then there'll be some guys that choose to take the free agent route. But those are even prior to the 105 limit and all those things. Those are issues that you're dealing with no matter what.”