Study: What happens to all the Track walk-ons?

Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.

It’s been a busy week of analysis of the House hearings. I’ve done podcasts with Split Zone Duo about it, Ari and Andy, Paul Finebaum and a few other places, and I’m working on doing other writing about it for next week too.

But one component that hasn’t gotten a ton of attention is how these settlement terms will specifically impact various sports.

Today, I want to turn the time over to Craig Morehead, an Associate Professor at Indiana State University, and Nicholas Swim, an Assistant Professor at the University of Maine. These two academics just finished a study on the specific impact of roster limit changes on collegiate track programs, one that involved extensive interviews with coaches, athletes and other stakeholders. I’m happy to yield the floor to them here:

 While much of the discussion surrounding the House Settlement has been on increased benefits via revenue sharing for college athletes attending Autonomy 5 and other schools “opting in”, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken must determine if the settlement is “fair, reasonable, and adequate” to class members. 

As part of the settlement process, stakeholders with concerns over the terms of the settlement were able to submit objections through January 31^st. In total, 73 objections were brought forth, including some involving roster limits (McCann, 2025a).

 An example of such an objection was lodged by Temple University gymnast Emma Reathaford, who expressed concerns that roster caps would lead to fewer opportunities for NCAA Division I athletes and argued that thousands of athletes would “be irreparably harmed because their schools will be forced to cut them from their current teams” (McCann, 2025b). 

In response, the motion for final approval filed on March 3^rd argued that there was a “misunderstanding of the settlement’s terms” (McCann, 2025a). In a document filed by class attorneys Jeffrey Kessler and Steve Berman on March 24^th, they contend that roster limits have led to “vastly overstated” fears and that in many sports the roster limits will be larger than the average squad size (McCann, 2025c). However, not all schools are likely to maximize scholarships, with many athletic departments instead expected to “tier” sports (Dellenger, 2024), and it is anticipated that schools will ultimately eliminate thousands of roster spots across Division I athletics (Dellenger, 2024).

 Based on our conversations with administrators and coaches, we also understand roster limits are being considered even at schools that do not opt-in. Therefore, we contend that the attorneys’ opinion that a stakeholder’s fear is “vastly overstated” at worst ignores, but at least dismisses, the lived experiences and concerns of individuals the settlement may directly impact. At the April 7^th House Settlement hearing, more objectors raised concerns about roster limits. Judge Wilken appeared receptive, suggesting “grandfathering in” current athletes could ease tensions, and hinted approval may hinge on addressing the issue (Dellenger, 2025). 

Track and field is one sport that may be uniquely impacted by changes from the settlement

Currently, NCAA DI track and field permits 18.0 scholarships for women and 12.6 for men to be distributed across an unlimited number of athletes on the cross country, indoor, and outdoor teams, meaning that many participants receive partial or no scholarships. The proposed change would replace the existing scholarship limits with roster caps of 45 athletes per gender, but would permit (not require) each athlete on the roster to receive a full scholarship, if the school chooses. 

For Olympic sports like track and field, we suspect that only a handful of schools nationwide would increase their number of scholarships. Given that the average squad size numbers in track and field have held consistent for many years at less than 45 athletes per team (NCAA, 2024), then on its face the 45-person limit proposed in the settlement seems sufficient. However, when analyzing NCAA DI roster sizes from the Track & Field Results Reporting System (TFRRS), we find 106 women’s teams (46 FBS, 41 FCS, 19 non-football) and 92 men’s teams (41 FBS, 34 FCS, 17 non-football) had rosters of more than 45 athletes during the 2023-24 season.

Therefore, the purpose of our study was to examine how NCAA DI Track & Field coaches and administrators are navigating anticipated changes stemming from the House Settlement.

We collected 88 usable responses to an open-ended questionnaire on the current landscape of the sport, conversations they were having with various stakeholder groups (i.e., athletes, peers, administration), and how the pending settlement may impact their program, athletic department, university, and sport. Respondents represented both public (76%) and private (24%) schools, as well as Power 5 (22.4%), Group of 5 (22.4%), FCS (16.4%), and Non-Football (38.8%) conferences. 

To better explain how roster limitations might impact track and field, it may be helpful to outline a few unique aspects of the sport:

• It is the only NCAA sport with championships in all three seasons—cross country in the fall, indoor in the winter (17 events contested), and outdoor in the spring (21 events contested). Although recognized as distinct sports for sponsorship purposes, many schools operate with one co-ed staff. This allows schools that meet sport criteria for each gender in each season to count up to six sports (WXC, MXC, WIN, MIN, WOUT, MOUT) toward NCAA DI sport sponsorship requirements with efficiency. 

• Due to distinct sports, individual athletic eligibility is tied to that specific season (i.e., if a true freshman competes during cross country, but doesn’t compete indoors due to injury, before making a come-back for the outdoor season, then that athlete’s eligibility will be “imbalanced” by using a year of eligibility for cross country and outdoor, but not indoor).

• Training in track & field is typically done by event groups (i.e., sprints, hurdles, middle distance, distance, horizontal jumps, vertical jumps, throws, combined events). Mid-distance and distance runners (those athletes who compete in 800m and longer) are typically the only athletes that compete in all three seasons. 

• Many athletes compete in multiple events each season—for example, a female hurdler might run the 60m hurdles and 4x400m relay indoors, then the 100m hurdles, 400m hurdles, 4x100m, and 4x400m relays outdoors. Others are more specialized, like pole vaulters who typically compete in just that event during both indoor and outdoor seasons. Even more specialized are javelin throwers, who often train solely for the javelin, which is only contested outdoors. 

• Finally, because there are so many events to cover with so few scholarships in the current model, many athletes are on little or no athletic aid.

Confused yet? We hope not, but these are important pieces of context to consider as we explain our findings.

Speaking of… our findings suggest that the coaches and administrators in our sample were particularly concerned about: 

• lost opportunities,

• forced roster changes,

• and risk of elimination,

• which may all have downstream effects related to undesirable enrollment ramifications and a negative team culture.

Let’s unpack a few of these concerns in more depth. 

Regarding lost opportunities, respondents were overwhelmingly concerned with the expectation that there would be fewer opportunities for athletes if the House Settlement is adopted with roster limits, with a particular negative impact on walk-ons, developmental athletes, and high school recruits.

As one P5 Conference Head Coach suggested, a capped roster will likely mean that “we no longer have time to give athletes the 2-3 years that it often takes to become great athletes at the college level,” which some are concerned may have a knock-on effect for Team USA Olympic development (Goodbread, 2024). Although many coaches mentioned that this may lead to a “trickle-down” effect with more talent parity, there has been mixed evidence on the effect of parity within college sport when scholarship limits have been introduced (Sutter & Winkler, 2003). 

 The concern over forced roster changes and the risk of elimination included issues such as cutting athletes, specializing in event groups, being forced into philosophical changes in how to fill out their team, increased utilization of the transfer portal, more signing of international athletes, and fear of (primarily men’s) programs being cut.

Roster limits might lead to conversations on how many events some athletes can compete in, forcing coaches to choose between offering a roster spot to a versatile sprinter over specialists like javelin throwers.

As one FCS Assistant Coach wrote, “long gone are the days to have specialists … it’s hard to take up roster spots with someone who’s a one trick pony.” That being said, if a coach was willing to give a scholarship to someone pre-House, they are likely to still give that person a roster sport post-House. But, those non-scholarship individuals (i.e., walk-ons) will be more likely to be left without a home in the new environment. When it comes to constructing rosters, as an extension to the point made by the P5 coach about not having time to develop athletes, one Associate Head Coach within a non-football conference said that limits on the roster “changes how we do business … previously relied on recruiting relatively large numbers and coach up but now can’t do that.”

 Furthermore, one G5 Head Coach said they were “holding some spots in some event areas in anticipation of the transfer portal being flooded with refugees” and that “international athletes will benefit as coaches look to maximize the production of each spot to the detriment of domestic athletes, especially high school ones looking for a roster spot.” 

It is also important to recognize that roster limits may not only negatively impact individual athletes, but it could have a negative impact on schools themselves.

Our findings indicate that the impact of roster caps may be felt most prominently at smaller institutions and private schools that may rely more on athletics as an enrollment mechanism.

For instance, an Associate Head Coach at a private school with less than 2,500 students said, “we’re an enrollment driven institution so I do worry that adding barriers to athletic enrollment by opting-in is a risky university move – particularly in the current climate where universities as a whole are focused more on enrollment than ever.”

Similarly, an administrator at a private school with less than 2,500 students said there was “unhappiness from university leadership who want to increase enrollment by forcing the track program to carry an overabundance of athletes.” As an example of a similar mindset, a Head Coach at a private school with 2,500-4,999 students said “… of the 107 athletes on the team, I am confident that 95 or so are here because we have a track team. That is 95 people who pay $45,000 per year … from a business standpoint we were GREAT for enrollment.”

As suggested by Rascher & Schwarz (2015) net revenue from tuition-paying athletes represents a value-add to overall revenue at institutions with capacity. But even if current athletes are “grandfathered-in” to allow schools some runway to get their rosters down to 45 athletes, it will still mean that within a few years there will likely be fewer athletes competing in NCAA DI Track & Field, which may have negative impacts on enrollment at some institutions.

While injuries and the COVID-19 pandemic have previously cut athletic careers short, the House Settlement's roster cuts could create a new wave of similar losses—unless Judge Wilken’s idea of “grandfathering in” current athletes is adopted.

Research shows that involuntary exits from college sports can cause significant trauma (Blinde & Stratta, 1992). With athlete identity loss linked to mental health challenges—and mental health now the top reason athletes transfer—the potential impact is troubling. As one G 5 Head Coach said, “we are trying to keep the toxicity as low as possible … but it will spike when it becomes clear people are fighting … for limited spots.”

So, what will come of athletes who may lose their roster spot? It likely depends on how important being a college athlete is to one’s identity. There will almost certainly be a flurry of transfer portal activity, and high school athletes who aspire to run in college may begin looking at options other than Division I, both of which may have positive effects on enrollment at Division II, Division III, NAIA, Junior College, and NCCAA institutions.

Short of that, however, college track & field clubs are few and far between, existing primarily at large flagship institutions. And, although there are many USATF club teams throughout the country, they primarily cater to youth athletes. In many ways, the U.S. track & field ecosystem relies on DI institutions, especially since so many elite-level athletes train with college coaches on college campuses and compete in college meets.

As suggested by some coaches in our study, a reduced number of athletes may allow coaches to spend more time with those who are training with them, but the primary take-away may be best characterized by one FCS Head Coach who said, “in a sport that values opportunities and diversity, we are limiting all of it.”