Quote:
Originally Posted by Atocep
So I actually had to go back and do some more homework on this. The last I had seen they hadn't officially approved expanded rosters for spring sports yet and baseball had a hard cap of 35 players. The extra year of eligibility has caused all sorts of problems and doing so without expanded rosters would be an even larger cluster.
My understanding, and I do admit I could be reading this wrong, is that the spring sport athletes get an extra year and it's up to the school to honor that scholarship. Seniors (or juco sophomores) that are returning don't count again the 35 player cap for baseball. If the school declines to honor a scholarship for the extra year and the player decides to try to play somewhere else then he counts against the 35 man roster cap. That's why I've seen jucos flooded with sophomores looking for a place to play.
So I guess it's not the worst possible decision but one that's created a hell of a mess for schools and players.
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Yes, this is essentially correct. For most of the sports that split scholarships (such as SB), this isn't as huge a deal but it still results in large rosters and a backlog of players for the next few years, assuming all of the players stay. For instance, U of AZ softball brought back all 7 seniors for this coming year (don't count against 12 scholarship limit) and had 5 players (sophomores/juniors) transfer out.
In reality, this is a bigger deal for P5 than others because P5 have 4 year guaranteed scholarships and other schools are year-to-year, so after this "free" senior year, everyone has to fit under the scholarship limits. That is why current HS seniors are in a bad way.
For a mid-major coach, the next few years are going to be largely this analysis: is my part-time playing rising junior whose ceiling I already know worth a roster spot over an incoming freshman who could be a better use of my money because they have greater potential? Because all of the current players on their roster have an extra year of eligibility and you will need to fit 5 classes of players into 4 years worth of scholarships while still trying to bring in freshmen every year.
It looks like they may follow the same course for fall as for spring.