ELI5 new scholarship/payment rules

Didn’t the SEC decide to stick with 85?

Scholarships…for now. They didn’t want to sign 105 then the court case not go through and have to revoke 20. I assume they’ll fall in line if the courts allow 105, at least on partial scholarship…if profit sharing goes through.

SEC currently has 85… if revenue sharing bill gets passed in April the only guarantee is that roster size would go down from 120 to 105. I’d imagine SEC would change their stance if that happens

If SEC keeps scholarships to 85, then yes. You would have 20 walkons to get to 105

So basically we can expect more high profile guys will "walk on" because their revenue share may be more than what G5 schools can offer in NIL?

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So basically we can expect more high profile guys will "walk on" because their revenue share may be more than what G5 schools can offer in NIL?

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Not exactly.

Right now NCAA rules say you can have up to 120 players on the squad, but only 85 can receive scholarships.

If the House settlement is approved, scholarship limits will be completely eliminated. At the same time, the squad size limit will be reduced from 120 to 105. This effectively means two things:
1. Each school will have an additional 20 scholarships available.
2. Each school will have to eliminate up to 15 roster spots.

What that means for walk-ons is still TBD. A number of current walk-ons will likely receive scholarships as soon as the settlement gets approved. But the question is whether we will see new walk-ons in the future. There’s nothing that says the schools have to offer the entire 105 scholarships, or that every player on the roster must be on scholarship. So it will really come down to roster/cost management. I think most of the “PWO” types will likely become scholarship players, while your “true” walk-ons who have no chance to compete will likely go by the wayside.

Where revenue sharing/NIL come into play is this:
1. It’s unclear how staffs will divvy up rev share money within a given sport. But based on current trends, I would be a bit surprised if they give all 105 (or whatever number) on the roster equal money. So I expect guys at the bottom of the 105 to get less while top players get more.
2. The more interesting thing to me is whether rev share incentivizes schools to keep less than 105 players on the roster. In the past we haven’t really worried about the financial cost of scholarships. But revenue sharing is going to make for much tighter finances. LSU in-state total cost of attendance is like $35k/year without counting additional support that scholarship athletes receive. So adding 20 scholarship players is like $700k for the athletic department. Some schools that have trouble hitting the rev share cap might get better value by allocating that $700k towards a smaller roster, instead of more players.

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Scholarship limits are defined by the NCAA, not the conferences. Even if the SEC said “sure, go sign up to 105 scholarship players” it wouldn’t change the fact that NCAA Bylaw 15.5.6.1 says that FBS teams can only have 85 counters (scholarship players). The SEC (or any other conference) has no authority to override those scholarship limits.

And therein lies the problem. The NCAA has not formally issued an interim policy addressing the pending House settlement - likely because they don’t want to negotiate against themselves. Teams who over-sign would be in violation of NCAA rules if the settlement falls through. In fact, they would be in violation the moment they have >85 scholarship players enrolled because the player becomes a counter as soon as they receive athletically-related financial aid. The midyear replacement rule allows you to replace departing players with EE’s and transfers, but only up to the number of players you lost.

So in the absence of an NCAA policy allowing teams to exceed 85 scholarships in the short term, nobody can sign >85 unless/until the settlement is approved and the NCAA changes the rule. That won’t happen until after this recruiting cycle is over.

In short, I don’t think the SEC’s decision about 2025 scholarship limits has nearly the impact that people think. If anything, I think it only prevents teams from signing additional portal guys or last-minute HS signees after the settlement gets approved (April at earliest). But it’s not like there’s a ton of talent waiting in the wings at that point.

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Thanks for the bylaw. This is a good explanation. I think the SEC figures it's easier to add 20 scholarships than to strip any scholarships.

I wonder if this may be why it looks like teams have excess players, could it be an expectation of additional scholarships?

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I wonder if this may be why it looks like teams have excess players, could it be an expectation of additional scholarships?

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I haven’t really noticed that.. any examples you can give?

The way the rule is written, you can’t exceed 85 counters at any point. A player becomes a counter as soon as they receive financial aid in a given year, and the minimum duration of any financial aid agreement is one full academic year.

There’s an exception for “midyear replacements.” Basically if a player is on scholarship but is no longer going to be part of the team for the spring semester (because they’re out of eligibility, entering the draft, or transferring), you can “replace” that counter with another scholarship. The player you bring in to replace him doesn’t become a counter until the next semester after the spring.

Historically the midyear replacements have primarily been used for early enrollees. But now they can be used for transfer portal additions as well. The point, though, is that you only get one “free” spring semester scholarship for each player you actually lose. Once you use those up, any additional scholarships you add in the spring are counters immediately and apply to the 85 cap. So there’s not really a way to have like 100 guys on scholarship going into spring practice.

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Right, I was aware of that. I am specifically talking about the portal guys right now and possible additions that look like over the 85 (which happens often) with several unknowns on who is staying or if guys might transfer or pull back out of the portal (if thatis even a desire by the staff) or even medical redshirt for John Emery.

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One thing to remember is that a lot of your HS signees won’t enroll until summer, even though they’re already signed. So you don’t need to use midyear replacements for those kids. Only the EE’s and incoming transfers.

Right now we are definitely losing 17 players to eligibility + draft, with another 16 in the portal. So 33 outgoing, not counting Perkins or Emery. We have 23 HS signees + 9 committed transfers, or 32 total incoming. I’ve also heard that we were only at 83 scholarships this year but can’t confirm.

Basically we have 1-3 spots available right now (depending on scholarship numbers this year) which could increase to 3-5 if Perkins and Emery both move on. But we will also have additional attrition in the spring window (including some players who might be “processed” if we are trending over 85). The spring window is when it becomes really critical, because that’s your last chance to tweak numbers before the summer enrollees come in from HS.