While the most noteworthy impact of Friday night’s House vs. NCAA settlement revolves around revenue sharing and NIL in the new landscape of college sports, there are seismic shifts coming to sports’ rosters, too.
Varsity sports across Division I are now equipped with roster limits that do away with past year’s scholarship limits. For example, D-I football rosters in 2024 worked with a scholarship limit of 85 players and an overall roster limit of 120 during competition. Following the House settlement, 2025 and beyond will feature a 105-player limit, full stop.
Teams are allowed, but not required, to offer scholarships to all 105 players on their rosters at their own discretion. They can also be full or partial scholarships.
Thus, many have worried about the future of walk-ons and players on the margins. Some major programs across the country (and not just in football) worked ahead of time and started to cut players well ahead of the settlement’s official completion.
So, the question must be asked: Will Penn State programs have to cut players from its rosters before the 2025 season? It’s a lengthy answer, but in short, no. And James Franklin sure is glad that’s the case.
Judge Claudia Wilken, in approving the final version of the settlement, adopted a clause that essentially grandfathered walk-ons and potential cut candidates into the agreement, guaranteeing them a spot on rosters until their eligibility is exhausted. The settlement has deemed these players “designated student-athletes” and described them as follows:
Division I student-athletes who were on a 2024-25 roster or were recruited to be on a 2025-26 roster and who were removed or would have been removed from the roster for 2025-26 due to the implementation of the roster limits.
As that description alludes to, players who were already cut can return to their previous institutions, or alternatively, are guaranteed a spot at a new program.
The large majority of the House vs. NCAA settlement had been agreed upon when terms were presented to Judge Wilken for a final hearing on April 7. After more than a dozen objectors presented their cases, however, Wilken planned to deny the entire agreement if there was not an adjustment to the impending shrinking of rosters. Two months later, we now have such a reality.
There’s a deadline in place for roster cuts, but those won’t be particularly extreme considering the DSA clause in the agreement. Fall sports have until the start of the 2025-26 academic year to adhere to roster limits, while winter and spring sports have until their start of competition or Dec. 1, whichever comes first.
Penn State’s 2025 football roster sits at 127 players, and while the pre-settlement NIL atmosphere had muddied things, at least 25 of those came to campus as walk-ons without a scholarship. Three such players from the 2024 season — Feyisayo Oluleye, Beckham Dee and Jason Estrella — entered the transfer portal this offseason. Only Dee thus far has found a new home, signing with Lafayette College.
Franklin said multiple times through the pre-agreement process that his staff had been up front with players about their spot on the roster with regard to the impending 105-player rule. After April’s Blue-White Game, he said they offered players the opportunity to enter the transfer portal before both the winter and spring windows. As a caveat, they also guaranteed those players a chance to compete for a roster spot while waiting until the last moment to make such cuts.
Now, Penn State won’t have to face those decisions, though things will certainly be a bit different in the near future. Gone will be the days of stories like captain linebacker Dom DeLuca, who enrolled as a walk-on but earned a scholarship through strong play.
“I don’t like it at all. I’m a D-II football player. I went to college on a $1,500 scholarship and a full Pell Grant,” Franklin said in April. “So I know what the game of football and college athletics does in general, in terms of helping build well-rounded individuals. What we do in the classroom is complemented by what we learn on the fields and the courts. I’m fighting and scratching and clawing to hold onto what I believe college athletics is all about: having transformational experiences for student athletes, not transactional…
“I don’t want to lose any of them. I’d like for these guys to stay a part of the program until they graduate. A lot of these young men chose Penn State to get their degree from Penn State and play football.”
Penn State Athletic Director Pat Kraft celebrates the team title at the NCAA Wrestling Championships on March 22, 2025. Joe Hermitt | jhermitt@pennlive.comJoe Hermitt | jhermitt@pennlive.com
With the roster limits extending through each varsity sport, Penn State will have some budgeting to do. Athletic director Pat Kraft has been adamant that the Nittany Lions will use all of their allotted revenue-sharing dollars on varsity programs, with the bulk going to football, men’s and women’s basketball and wrestling.
But Penn State also has national-power programs in volleyball, soccer and hockey, among others, that will need enough money to allocate throughout the new rosters with expanded allowance for scholarships.
“We’re trying to be able to manage the money so that if we need to move on someone, no matter what the sport is, we have the ability,” Kraft said in February. “There’s the No. 1 fencer in the world, and we need to go use rev-share to maybe tilt it our way? We’re going to be able to do that.”
As it pertains to Penn State’s varsity sports, here’s where the new roster limits land, per Yahoo Sports:
- Baseball — 34 (previous limit of 11.7 scholarships)
- Men’s basketball — 15 (13)
- Women’s basketball — 15 (15)
- Men’s cross country — 17 (5)
- Women’s cross country — 17 (6)
- Men’s fencing — 24 (4.5)
- Women’s fencing — 24 (5)
- Field hockey — 27 (12)
- Football — 105 (85)
- Men’s golf — 9 (4.5)
- Women’s golf — 9 (6)
- Men’s gymnastics — 20 (6.3)
- Women’s gymnastics — 20 (12)
- Men’s hockey — 26 (18)
- Women’s hockey — 26 (18)
- Men’s track and field — 45 (12.6)
- Women’s track and field — 45 (18)
- Men’s lacrosse — 48 (12.6)
- Women’s lacrosse — 38 (12)
- Men’s soccer — 28 (9.9)
- Women’s soccer — 28 (14)
- Softball — 25 (12)
- Men’s swim and dive — 30 (9.9)
- Women’s swim and dive — 30 (14)
- Men’s tennis — 10 (4.5)
- Women’s tennis — 10 (8)
- Men’s volleyball — 18 (4.5)
- Women’s volleyball — 18 (12)
- Men’s wrestling — 30 (9.9)
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