How the new college football roster limit will affect Utah in 2025.
The “House vs. NCAA” lawsuit is having a significant impact on collegiate athletics, particularly college football, as additional details surface from the historic settlement.
The settlement’s headline was all about revenue sharing, with colleges able to share $20 million or more per year with their athletes beginning in the 2025-26 academic year, but more details have emerged this week about new sports roster limits.
According to Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger, as part of the deal, colleges can now grant scholarships to every player on a team’s roster, with power conference commissioners finalizing those boundaries last week. According to data from The Athletic, there might be a significant rise in scholarships across a university’s athletic department, depending on the sports it sponsors.
Utah, which sponsors 18 sports — baseball, men’s and women’s basketball, women’s cross-country, football, men’s golf, gymnastics, men’s lacrosse, combined men’s and women’s skiing, women’s soccer, softball, men’s and women’s swimming and diving, women’s track and field, volleyball, and beach volleyball — now has approximately 226 new scholarships to distribute if each sport fills its maximum roster.
For example, college baseball, which previously had a scholarship maximum of 11.7, now has a roster limit of 34, with scholarships available to all players on the team.
In 2025, college football will have a roster limit of 105, with scholarships available to all players on the squad, up from 85 today.
This shift might virtually end the practice of walk-on players, who now account for approximately 30% of Division I college football rosters. Walk-ons practice and play on the team but do not earn a scholarship and must pay their own way through school.
While the settlement benefits up to 20 walk-ons who will be awarded scholarships, it will also result in the loss of up to 15 seats on each team, reducing the current NCAA maximum roster size of 120.
Utah currently has 109 players on their 2024 roster, while the Utes often add extra walk-ons during fall camp to bring the total up to 120. In 2023, the Utes had a full complement of 120 players.
“That’s getting down to the bare bones,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said of the impending roster adjustments on Monday.
With no ability to add players after the season begins in case of injuries, as the NFL does, the longtime Utah coach is concerned about rosters becoming too “thin” by the end of the season, especially if a team makes a deep playoff run, which could mean playing up to 16 or 17 games between the regular season, conference championship game, and playoff games — similar to the length of the NFL regular season.
The benefit, according to Whittingham, is the chance for more players to be on scholarship.
The drawback is that fewer players will be able to make a roster. Most Division I teams have 120 players on their rosters, therefore losing 15 players from each of the 134 Division I teams may result in a loss of more than 2,000 roster positions.
“That’s a lot of ball players that won’t have the opportunity to play Division I football,” Whittingham told reporters.
