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

Structural changes stemming from the preliminarily approved House v. NCAA settlement look to fundamentally change college recruitment.

Nov 8, 2008; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Southern California Trojans defensive end Clay Matthews (47) celebrates after game against the California Golden Bears at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. USC defeated California 17-3. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

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. 

The public focus of the settlement has largely surrounded the new $22,000,000 expenditure for university athletic departments, the new challenges it will present from a revenue generation perspective, and a new professional front-office style approach college programs will have to take toward player recruitment. However, lost in much of the discourse is a discussion on the implications of the new settlement’s roster limits that could impact a significantly greater quantity of collegiate athletes. 

As a companion piece to the revenue-sharing model, the NCAA has provided another provision that limits roster size for every sports team. Those who opt into revenue sharing are mandated to follow the new roster size rules.

Compared recent NCAA Participation Rates with proposed roster limits.

Avg. roster sizes exceed roster limits in many sports.

Statistically, a typical DI school will have 8 different teams cutting 40+ roster spots - about 7% of their student-athlete body.

More details in the 🧵 https://t.co/U9xKwu49I6 pic.twitter.com/0ZDE2cKJRc

— Braly Keller (@BralyKeller) October 25, 2024

Previously, the only restriction on NCAA rosters was scholarship, not size. Headcount sports like football and basketball that require full scholarships to all scholarship players could still backload their rosters with non-scholarship walk-ons. While college football teams limit their scholarships to 85 athletes, the average roster size of a FBS football team is roughly 128 players. 

In the new system, scholarship limitations have been removed, and every athlete on the roster can receive up to a full scholarship. Athletic scholarships will still be under Title IX guidance, and schools must allocate equal scholarships to men’s and women’s athletes. 

The era of the walk-on athlete is likely nearing its end, particularly in high-profile sports like football and basketball. Walk-ons — often the unsung heroes of college athletics — have long filled out these rosters, adding depth and enhancing practice dynamics without expecting much in return. However, with the new roster limits, opportunities for walk-ons will diminish significantly. 

Every FBS roster will now be limited to 105 athletes, a 23-spot reduction from the current average, and every one of those spots is entitled to a scholarship. While teams still have flexibility in how many scholarships they allocate, the new structure strongly incentivizes schools to fully fund all roster spots with scholarship athletes, leaving little room for non-scholarship players. This shift effectively reduces the incentive to field walk-ons, as teams will likely prioritize fully funded rosters over maintaining non-scholarship spots. As a result, the traditional pathway for walk-ons is quickly disappearing, putting the very future of the walk-on athlete in jeopardy. 

For non-revenue athletes, partial scholarships are almost always awarded. As a former Division I golfer, my team would split 4.5 scholarships between 9-11 players depending on the roster size of any given season. If a school is to opt into revenue sharing, a 9-player roster limit will be imposed, and the potential scholarship allotment will be increased to meet that number. 

For schools like Auburn, Texas, and Stanford, they will likely fully fund their golf teams. They play in big conferences, have plenty of money, and use these scholarships as a primary recruiting pitch. For schools in the Atlantic 10, the conference I played in, athletics revenue is less abundant, and the cost of 4.5 extra scholarships for the golf team is likely better served elsewhere in the department –– like institutional revenue sharing payments for revenue sports.

Big-time schools that opt into the revenue-sharing agreement are more likely to fund non-revenue athlete’s scholarships fully. Smaller schools do not share that outlook. This new system will likely exacerbate the recruiting disadvantages between big and small schools. Small schools used to go after sought-after recruits with attractive scholarship offers and promises of playing time –– with only 4.5 scholarships available at every school, this pitch could work. Now, with 9 scholarships available, likely only fully taken advantage of by Power 5 schools, the deck is even further stacked against mid-majors. 

Understandably, very few people care about mid-major golf. So, how will this change impact the collegiate sports landscape? Let’s look at SEC baseball as a more relevant example. Currently, 15 of the 16 SEC baseball programs have rosters that exceed the new 34-player roster limit. The good news for those remaining on the team in the 2025-26 season is that the athletics department will likely raise their scholarships. Will they fully fund every baseball player’s education? Once again, that depends on each institution’s goals and Title IX math. Schools with as much athletics revenue as those in the SEC will likely spend on increased scholarship payouts; if they don’t, someone else will. 

SEC Baseball's current roster sizes, as compared to the new 34 man roster limitation. / Noah Henderson

Looking at roster data, it becomes clear that this new landscape will significantly impact the entire framework of college baseball. A reduction of 158 SEC baseball players will be noticed next year. For players on rosters with too much depth at their respective positions, they must find new homes for the upcoming season — an average of 9.875 players will be cut from each SEC roster, unleashing a bevy of premier baseball talent into the transfer portal. 

To industry experts, this means Big Ten, ACC, and JUCO baseball will be more talented than ever. Roster reductions will push quality players to schools with less talent, creating a domino effect that will send many players in lower conferences out of baseball or further down the pecking order. This phenomenon is not unique to baseball; it will be experienced in football, men’s ice hockey, men’s lacrosse, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s volleyball, and men’s wrestling. With so many angles of new NCAA regulations changing recruitment, it is indeterminate if the new system will increase or decrease competitive parity. 

Many smaller schools are still deciding if they should opt into revenue sharing. Roster limits are a large part of those considerations. Certain institutions may have to cut upwards of fifty athletes across all programs to comply with new roster size restrictions. Opting into the settlement becomes a challenging choice for schools that are not competing at the Power 5 or even the Group of 5 level, knowing that many athletes will no longer have opportunities to compete. 

These schools will unlikely be able to come up with substantial revenue-sharing funds, and the marginal recruiting advantages of offering rev-share at much below the $22,000,000 cap may not outweigh the negative public perception, and potential athletic fundraising pitfalls, of mass roster reductions. The only thing that remains certain is that the pool of Division I athletes will be considerably smaller as we move forward.