SEC football coaches are preparing for the impact of possible NCAA-wide roster cuts.
As coaches attended the league's spring meetings on Tuesday after the NCAA and the Big Five conferences reached a settlement agreement, the roster issue was on their minds. While the ultimate outcome won't be known for several months, Texas A&M coach Mike Elko was especially adamant about the possibility of football rosters being limited to around 85 players.
Elko argued that the 85-player limit, which would essentially eliminate walk-ons, “would be really bad for the sport.”
“I strongly disagree with this,” the Aggies' first-year coach said, “and I think it goes completely against the principles and purpose of college football.”
Scholarship caps could be lifted for some sports, but even well-funded schools would have to make choices about whether to fully or partially fund their athletic programs. Currently, Bowl Subdivision football programs are allowed to award 85 full scholarships, but with the potential for increased spending, some sort of cap could help balance the competition, though it could also risk more litigation.
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So roster sizes are a major issue for football coaches across the country, though they're far from the biggest one, with direct payments from schools to players on the table if a federal court approves a roughly $2.8 billion settlement.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said he has spoken to the league's coaches in recent weeks and advised them to slow down.
“I know there have been discussions in other conferences, and then their coaches texted our coaches and they stepped up,” Sankey said. “So we said, wait, we're going to have a conversation. That's where it is. It's a concept.”
It was just one topic of discussion as coaches, chancellors, athletic directors and other officials met for three days to address a host of unresolved issues, from restructuring college sports to player compensation and transfers.
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“There's just so much going on right now. There's no one thing that's dominant,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “This is probably the most anticipated meeting I've had in the nine years that I've been around this team, because there's just so many things that we don't get to decide, that we have a say in. Some of it is beyond our scope of decision-making. So there's just so many things that are out there.”
“I don't know anybody who's against walk-ons,” said Smart, who noted that coaches such as Clemson's Dabo Swinney and former Florida and South Carolina coach Will Muskamp were walk-ons in college.
Several coaches are concerned about the future of walk-ons and possible changes to practice if they are at a loss. Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, preparing for the Longhorns' debut SEC season, doesn't want to lose any of those non-scholarship players. His son, Brady, is one of the Longhorns' 35 walk-ons.
“Hopefully we can find common ground on a reasonable number,” Sarkisian said. “There will be changes, but hopefully we can find a reasonable number that allows us to feel like we can operate at a high level as coaches and as players.”
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New Alabama head coach Karen DeBoer has publicly taken a more go-with-the-flow approach than his outspoken predecessor, Nick Saban, even if it means eventually adapting to an 85-man roster.
“Obviously, there's always a way,” DeBoer said. “Will it be much different than what we're doing in terms of coaching and executing practice plans? Absolutely. But I'm always the type of guy to adapt with the times and I think we've just got to do what we have to do.”
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Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea also isn't planning to, in Sankey's words, “get riled up” about upcoming roster changes.
“Everything I've heard is not credible,” Leah said. “It's all still up in the air. I'd like to know a little more about everything. I feel it would be irresponsible to talk about it or form an opinion now. I'd like to know everything that's going on before I form an opinion. … Right now there's a lot of speculation going on that I'm not paying much attention to.”
Reported by The Associated Press.
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