A signing day column by USA Today's Dan Wolken proposed the following:
• No more than 70 scholarship players on a roster
• No more than 20 players signed in each recruiting class
• Get rid of the redshirt rule and give players five years of eligibility to accommodate for injuries or attrition during the season.
He also talks about having coaching scholarships, which we already have with GAs. That doesn't need to be an undergrad program, imo. I could get behind increasing the number of GAs allowed, though, from 4 to 6.
Foundations of reductions come from Title IX imperatives of trying to balance the number of athletic scholarships for men & women at universities:
The NCAA first put in a 105-scholarship limit for football in 1973 after Congress passed Title IX and has reduced it periodically to 95 and then the current 85 in 1992.
I think the general idea has merit. I wouldn't go down to 70, though. 75 would be a better number. With the new rule that a player can play in up to 4 games without losing the redshirt, the rosters can accommodate a scholarship reduction without hurting the quality of play.
Also, I don't see a need to reduce the size of recruiting classes to 20. Who cares? As long as you can't go over 75, I don't really care if someone is signing 20 or 25 or 30. It's largely irrelevant.
I don't think it would impact competitive balance like Wolken thinks it would by hurting the Alabama type dynasties. That's not what happened before. What the past has shown is that the elites remain elite when you reduce scholarship numbers in football but that the depth of the power conferences gets better. You don't have those absolute, perpetual doormats in P5 conferences like you used to have. This reduction would likely take us farther in that direction with better quality football on average and a more realistic opportunity to be successful at any P5 program - but the elites would still be the elites.
• No more than 70 scholarship players on a roster
• No more than 20 players signed in each recruiting class
• Get rid of the redshirt rule and give players five years of eligibility to accommodate for injuries or attrition during the season.
He also talks about having coaching scholarships, which we already have with GAs. That doesn't need to be an undergrad program, imo. I could get behind increasing the number of GAs allowed, though, from 4 to 6.
Foundations of reductions come from Title IX imperatives of trying to balance the number of athletic scholarships for men & women at universities:
The NCAA first put in a 105-scholarship limit for football in 1973 after Congress passed Title IX and has reduced it periodically to 95 and then the current 85 in 1992.
I think the general idea has merit. I wouldn't go down to 70, though. 75 would be a better number. With the new rule that a player can play in up to 4 games without losing the redshirt, the rosters can accommodate a scholarship reduction without hurting the quality of play.
Also, I don't see a need to reduce the size of recruiting classes to 20. Who cares? As long as you can't go over 75, I don't really care if someone is signing 20 or 25 or 30. It's largely irrelevant.
I don't think it would impact competitive balance like Wolken thinks it would by hurting the Alabama type dynasties. That's not what happened before. What the past has shown is that the elites remain elite when you reduce scholarship numbers in football but that the depth of the power conferences gets better. You don't have those absolute, perpetual doormats in P5 conferences like you used to have. This reduction would likely take us farther in that direction with better quality football on average and a more realistic opportunity to be successful at any P5 program - but the elites would still be the elites.
