Roster management is the term used by insiders to describe the process of optimizing the overall talent level of the football team while operating under the NCAA’s 85/25 rule. To manage their rosters, and make room for new players, many coaches resort to terminating established players who still have eligibility, or removing players from the roster by declaring them unable to participate (called a medical hardship).
The NCAA’s 85/25 rule means a football program may have no more than 85 total players on scholarship at any given moment and may not add more than 25 new scholarship players in any one year. Since a player may have a scholarship for up to 5 years (while playing games in 4 of those years), if a school added 25 new scholarship players every year for 5 years the team would have 125 total scholarship players and that would be a violation.
Roster management rules need to be reformed because too many coaches recruit a new player without disclosing to him the implications of the 85/25 rule and the fact that the scholarship is guaranteed for only one year. In recent years it has not been unusual for a player to be notified on the last possible day that his scholarship would not be renewed for the next year. Imagine the impact this has on a player who thought the scholarship was good for 5 years and who thought the only reason he could lose his scholarship was for academic failure or committing a violation that would get any student expelled.
This section of the website/blog will be dedicated to documenting roster management practices of specific schools, discussing ways to diminish the harm done to established players, and to formulate reforms to the rules pertaining to roster management.
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