A perfect storm is brewing in college football that could fundamentally change the way recruiting works and affect thousands of high school players in the process.
As coaching staffs are try to solve a roster management riddle that began with the COVID-19 pandemic and the return of “super seniors,” they’re also trying to adapt to a new era of free agency after the one-time transfer waiver has been approved.
Currently, teams are allowed to sign 25 players per year on an “initial counter,” which means the player is receiving financial aid in a sport for the first time while counting against the 85-man scholarship limit per team. But as teams lose players to the transfer portal in increasing numbers while also losing them to injury or academic issues, more teams are looking to the transfer market to fill spots. Administrators are quickly picking up on a major trend.
“Everybody is basically just suggesting, ‘I’m not going to recruit high school players anymore,'” said Todd Berry, the executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, who has been sitting in on conference coaches’ meetings along with the AFCA’s own coaches’ meetings. “Recruiting off other campuses is going to be the norm and high school recruiting is going to go away. I don’t think there’s any way around that unless the 25 initials gets changed. I don’t think that’s a hypothetical. I think that’s a fact, because I know what the coaches are going to do because we’re on these calls together.”
Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley reinforced Berry’s concern.
“There’s without a doubt going to be less high school players getting scholarships,” Riley said. “If a player leaves your roster, then you replace them with a transfer, you had to use an initial to bring the player on, and then you’ve got to use another one to bring in a new transfer. The more initials that get used up, every one of them takes away from a high school guy that you could sign.”
As more coaches sound the alarm on these looming issues, ESPN’s Andrea Adelson, Adam Rittenberg, Tom VanHaaren and Dave Wilson spoke to coaches and administrators about answers to the roster puzzle and how the pieces fit heading into the 2021 season and beyond.
What is the current issue, and how did we get here?
The NCAA granted each student-athlete an extra year of eligibility because of the impact of COVID-19, which seemed like a good idea at first, but has now brought on other issues. The NCAA allows teams to exceed the 85 total scholarship limit in 2021 by the number of seniors they had on the roster last season, but there is no rule to allow them to take on extra scholarships beyond this year.
“I think they did that at first because they thought we weren’t going to play and then we did,” a Power 5 defensive coordinator said. “So, what happens now is we’ll have six kids come back and the kid who’s a sophomore who would’ve potentially been a starter next year, he’s not going to play as much because these kids are back. A year from now, he’s probably going to want to stick around longer because he doesn’t have as much game tape as he normally would.
“So, it’s going to affect you for a while.”
Programs are going to see more players than normal stick around for an extra season. That means fewer scholarships will be available, especially at schools that don’t typically produce underclassman NFL prospects who would free up scholarship spots. Top-tier academic institutions that typically don’t see much attrition and have athletes who prioritize their education could see a numbers crunch because their roster numbers won’t drop. That means it will have an impact on high school prospects and the number of scholarships available nationally.
“This 2022 high school class will be screwed because there are going to be half the amount of scholarships,” a Power 5 offensive coordinator said. “We won’t sign 25 in this class, [we’ll only sign] somewhere around 14, and some teams will only sign eight. They haven’t changed any of the rules in recruiting, so we only get 25 scholarships a year for the initial counters, and then you have to stay at the 85 total. So, at some point we have to get back down to 85, and this class is going to get screwed by it.”
The FBS defensive coordinator who spoke anonymously for this story believes there will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 to 400 fewer scholarships available nationally for high school recruits. The thought process is schools will likely only be able to sign as many high school prospects as they have juniors or underclassmen leaving the program. Because every athlete has an extra year of eligibility, teams are essentially pushing their scholarship numbers out an extra year. That, in turn, means coaches will be less inclined to take a chance on a high school prospect if they can turn to the increasing number of players in the transfer portal. With limited scholarships available, coaches likely will prefer transfers who have already proven themselves at the college level.
For example, if a coach needs three linebackers for the 2022 class, he won’t likely take that many because he can’t afford to spend 25% of scholarships on one position, especially if he’s only taking a total of 12 to 14 high school prospects. Two years from now, the coach is going to go to the transfer portal in search of linebackers. Power 5 programs are likely going to raid lower-level schools and pick up the best players. That will cause the lower level schools to reevaluate their decision-making, as well.
“If I’m at Ball State, let’s say I take a kid who’s skinny and I project him at left tackle and two years from now I was right and he’s going to be an All-MAC player,” the Power 5 defensive coordinator said. “He’s going to transfer, and a school like us is going to take him. If I’m Ball State, I’m like, screw that. “Why spend time developing that kid only for him to leave me, when I can go sign the kid who’s unhappy as the fourth corner at a Power 5 school and he’s a better player anyway?”
So, no one likes the current situation. Who can fix it, and why haven’t they?
Any potential changes have to start with the NCAA’s Division I Football Oversight Committee, which would have to agree to send legislation for approval to the Division I Council. The earliest any changes could happen would be in 2022.
Committee chair Shane Lyons told ESPN the group has discussed the roster management issue, and there was no support for granting relief on scholarship caps beyond this season. Multiple conferences have put together proposals to help alleviate their concerns about what to do with seniors who want to come back for another year while trying to sign a full recruiting class in December.
The ACC, for example, discussed at its recent virtual spring meetings a proposal that would allow a maximum of five additional scholarships in 2022 to accommodate any seniors who may decide later they want to come back. Lyons did not sound confident any new proposals would gain much traction.
“The committee didn’t feel like they wanted to extend it beyond this point,” said Lyons, West Virginia’s director of athletics. “The question is, when do you stop? Because you have four or five years of classes in here. So somewhere, you’ve got to rip off the Band-Aid and go forward. And the committee felt like we gave relief for one year.”
There also are financial implications if the committee allows schools to go over 85 scholarships again in 2022.
“You can’t do it for football and not the other sports,” Lyons said. “Depending on your school, on average, it’s probably anywhere from $1.5 million to $2 million, so it’s a cost issue for campuses if you continue allowing super seniors to return. I hear what coaches are saying: ‘If I can only get ’22.’ Then there’s going to be another conference that will say, ‘We’d love to have him for ’23, because I got some of my best players that want to return.'”
Lyons is wrapping up his term as committee chair, and there will be turnover with the group itself, so it is not as if the door is shut on discussing possible solutions. But coaches are frustrated that their concerns have been dismissed, considering in-person recruiting opens back up in June with on-campus visits for the first time in more than a year.
Multiple coaches expressed concern about telling either a high school player who made a commitment to them, or a super senior, that there simply is no roster spot available. “I have never taken away a scholarship offer from a high school player who has made a commitment to me, and I’m not going to start now,” one Power 5 coach said.
“Watch what happens in June,” another Power 5 coach said. “High school kids are going to realize the dilemma the institutions are in about scholarships. They’re going to suddenly feel squeezed, and scholarships are going to be tight. So watch the barrage of commitments in June. It’s going to happen. I’m having to approve how many high school seniors we’re bringing in for official visits in June, and I don’t want to bring a young man in that if they decide they want to come here, I can’t take that commitment. That’s ludicrous, right?”
“Somewhere, you’ve got to rip off the Band-Aid and go forward. And the committee felt like we gave relief for one year.”
Division I Football Oversight Committee chair Shane Lyons
American Athletic Conference coaches favor increasing the annual scholarship count by five to 30, and a source said Big Ten coaches have discussed a similar plan. So have Big 12 coaches.
Mountain West deputy commissioner Bret Gilliland, a member of the oversight committee, said the coaches are being heard. He sees “no perfect solution” to the larger roster management quandary, but supports some degree of flexibility to help coaches with the scholarship math.
“Does that last through the four or five years when all of these super seniors cycle out?” Gilliland said. “Some of this conversation preceded COVID and the super senior issue, because of the transfer flexibility that we knew was in the offing and has now been approved, and the transfer portal. That may mean there needs to be a more permanent solution. I would be open to that conversation to try to mitigate that a bit.”
Tulane athletic director Troy Dannen, also part of the oversight committee, agrees that any changes must look beyond COVID-related adjustments, and plan for the 2022 season and future seasons and recruiting classes.
“A lot of folks don’t feel like we have any time,” he said. “The essence, the urgency, is to make sure that when we come in for the fall of ’22, schools can be at or near the 85, and long term, at or near the 85. That’s where my focus is: What do we have to do, knowing this math equation is going to show up in the fall of ’22? What do we do between now and really the signing period in December to try to alleviate that?”
Like others, Gilliland knows many players entering the transfer portal aren’t finding scholarships on the other side. But there’s only so much institutions can afford.
“All marketplaces, all ecosystems, find their balance. Well, that’s what’s happening here,” he said. “Some folks are taking advantage of the opportunity to go to the portal, but that may end up not being a good outcome. I am sympathetic to it, you hate to see that happen, but those are choices we all make, and there are consequences. You can’t have it both ways.
“You want the flexibility, but then you’re going to take a risk that may not turn out for you.”
Another question is when replacements could be used. Administrators don’t want to return to the days of oversigning, where coaches could run off 10 or more players into the portal and replace them right away.
Dannen forecasts a significant increase in unused scholarships, given the exodus to the transfer portal. He said FBS teams are averaging 11 scholarship players in the portal. Even if teams have half of that total entering preseason camps, it would leave about 650 open scholarships.
“Athletic scholarships are probably the greatest merit-based scholarship program in the history of higher education,” Dannen said. “No one is served by not utilizing them. The school’s not served, the students aren’t served. This isn’t about giving five walk-on scholarships when they get there. This is about making sure all of those scholarships are spent, if you will, that the maximum benefit is derived.”
Dannen doesn’t think the upcoming season will create a major scholarship squeeze, as super seniors should keep the overall totals in a reasonable range. He worries more about the “compounding effect” of not replacing players who enter the portal this year.
“If we are limiting ourselves to the 25, and that prevents us from staying around 85,” Dannen said, “then the cap in a transfer portal environment may not have the same beneficial impact that it had before the transfer portal environment.”
This summer, roster management will gain more attention from the oversight committee, which could begin with moderate recommendations and then possibly more significant ones. There’s a belief that changes must be implemented in January 2022.
“I hate living by waivers. When you live by waivers, that means you don’t really have rules,” Dannen said. “There may be an emergency need from a waiver process, just because of the timing, but I hope that something can move forward so that by January of ’22, when things will be voted on in a normal governance cycle, we could put something in front of the membership that will make sure we have adequate, safe roster sizes in a portal environment.”
How could they fix it?
In the short term, the issue coaches have with the extra year of eligibility could be solved a few different ways, depending on the viewpoint. Some coaches believe they should be allowed to have 50 initial counters over a two-year period, and instead of being limited to 25 each year, they could use the 50 however they please. For example, if they sign 15 in one class, they would then be able to sign 35 in the next. The problem some coaches will bring up with that solution is that it just prolongs the issue. A Power 5 athletic director said this plan is gaining traction among decision-makers, noting, “We’ve got to do something with the hard cap.
“Do we really need a hard cap in football?” the athletic director added. “What’s the justification in football when we really don’t have it in other sports? I’d rather just go to 30 [allowable scholarships per year]. You’ve got to stay in your 85 but this transfer thing is here to stay. It’s not like we have a problem this year but won’t have a problem next year.” Eventually, every team will need to get back to 85 scholarships, and no matter how it’s done, a recruiting class is going to end up feeling the impact. “It’ll never end if you allow us to keep going over the 85 total scholarship limit,” a Power 5 offensive coordinator said. “Unless you said you can continue to sign 25 every year, but there’s no maximum amount you can have on scholarship. The 25 initial counters per year for the COVID extra year of eligibility is not the problem — it’s the 85 total limit. “Eventually some high school class is going to be hurt, it’s just which one?”
The rising number of players entering the transfer portal is more of a long-term issue that would require a different set of solutions. Even if a program is under the 85 total scholarship limit, if they have brought in a combination of 25 high school recruits and transfers for that cycle, they are not allowed to sign any more players. Some coaches have suggested separating those numbers. Keep the 85 total limit, but don’t count transfers toward the 25 initial counters. That would free up a few spots each year for high school prospects and would allow coaches to bring in transfers to help fill the roster.
“You can keep it at 25 and say anybody that leaves for the NFL, or goes in the transfer portal — and when he goes in the portal, they should have to fill out a questionnaire that says, were you run off or was this your decision?’ If he checks that it was his decision, then, OK, then you get another initial back,” one ACC head coach said. “That’s how it should be.”
Gilliland thinks any scholarship flexibility should come in the form of replacements, rather than additional ones, as the financial burden of going beyond 85 would be too great and ultimately unfair. He supports a “national standard” for when the replacement scholarships would be used. Certain categories likely would have support for 1-for-1 replacements, such as when players enter the NFL draft, receive medical non-counters, or graduate and transfer to seek playing time elsewhere. On separate calls, both the offensive and defensive coordinator that spoke for this story had a similar solution as to how they would help the situation.
“I know one thing that has been talked about among coaches, if you lose a kid to transfer then you get that number back,” the offensive coordinator said. “If a kid transfers and he’s in good academic standing, you get the number back. So if a kid leaves in December, your signing class can now go to 26. “That way, you’re always allowed to sign the amount you lost.”
Another area this would help is the abnormally large freshman classes teams currently have. Because everyone was granted an extra year of eligibility, the players who were true freshmen this past season are technically still true freshmen this season. Coaches added in their 2021 recruiting class, so they now could have upward of 45-50 true freshmen on the roster right now. It’s not likely they would all stay and finish their careers at that school, and it’s not likely that all of them would use the extra year of eligibility, but if a school has 50 players in this category and loses 10, that means it still has 40 true freshmen that will eventually leave all at once.
“We have 44 true freshmen, and this goes back to the only way to replace those numbers is if a kid goes in the portal, then they let you replace it in the next two classes,” the offensive coordinator said. “If we have 12 kids transfer, now we’re at 73 scholarships, OK, we get 12 more initial counters in the next two cycles to replace it. If they don’t do that, teams will be left with 65 scholarships, and then walk-ons will be the greatest priority known to man again and Nebraska will be a national power once again.”
Berry said this is a frequent concern of coaches, of not being able to get back to the 85 scholarships because of the 25-per-year limit.
“I’ve got multiple programs out there that are suggesting they’re in the low 70s right now in terms of scholarships, even with 25 kids coming in,” Berry said.
The solution seems logical, because it would help coaches maintain the roster, free up more scholarships for high school prospects and also free up spots for the college player who enters the portal only to get stuck with no place to go because of a numbers crunch at other programs. That aspect has become an increasing problem, as well. As much as some coaches want to help a player find another school, there just aren’t as many scholarships as there are transfers.
“The only thing that’s going to solve the transfer portal is the reality setting in,” the Power 5 defensive coordinator said. “We have a player who entered the portal and is realizing the Group of 5 schools have been holding out for the best players. Now it’s like, ‘Hey, Coach, can you call this school for me?’ I can, but they don’t have a scholarship for you. “I think kids might start to realize it could be better trying to stick this thing out and compete here when I don’t know what I’m getting into at other places.”
Lyons said the committee did not want to rush into any changes based off the new one-time transfer rule, but instead would study it over the next three to four months to evaluate whether a change in the initial scholarship limits should be made.
“That’s ultimately going to be something that’s going to be on the table to be looked at and discussed in the future,” Lyons said.
With every issue in college athletics, the future is not that far off, so these roster management concerns are eventually going to turn into real problems with real repercussions.
This is a rare scenario where coaches, student-athletes and high school recruits are all impacted and looking for an answer together. None of them know what the solution is to fix every problem, but they know conversations need to turn into action to avoid a catastrophe for all sides.
“You look at all these rules that have changed, and admittedly some of them have absolutely changed for the better,” Riley said. “But when you go that quickly and completely in the opposite direction of what they were, you’re going to create this. And I think some of them, we went way too far. So there’s a little bit of lag right now because the infrastructure is not in place to support all these. And there’s going to be some issues and there’s going to be some problems, and we’re going to see some schools are going to suffer as a result of it.”