The Destin boardroom isn’t known for unanimity, at least not when the SEC takes over the Gulf Coast resort the week after Memorial Day for its annual spring meeting.
But one story has it that all 16 of the league’s football coaches seem to be playing on the same team.
A year ago there was disagreement about whether the conference schedule should be eight or nine games, but everyone is in agreement about not reducing rosters.
The issue was at the center of discussion at the football coaches meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, which was notable given the multiple big changes happening in college sports: And while not all of them are related, this issue is directly related to the most significant big change: the House v. NCAA court settlement.
Changing allowable roster sizes is one possible solution to the lawsuit over compensation paid directly to athletes by the athletics department.
In football, rosters that can reach as many as 120 players, including walk-ons, could be trimmed down to 85 players on scholarship.
“I don’t know the straight answer as to why,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said Wednesday, continuing the theme this week of conference participants leaving the room with more questions than answers.
Eliminating these walk-on programs entirely wouldn’t necessarily translate to what we see on Saturday afternoons, but it would completely change how coaches build their programs and conduct practices, as scout teams are often comprised primarily of walk-ons who have toiled outside of the spotlight but have always played a big role in their on-field success.
At places like Texas A&M, walk-ons have become part of the program’s identity through the 12th man tradition.
“Yeah, I’m very against the cap,” new Aggies coach Mike Elko said, “I think it goes completely against the philosophy and purpose of college football. It’s really bad for the sport because it takes away the legacy that the kids at Texas A&M should have of getting the opportunity to play football.”
Arkansas coach Sam Pittman was pragmatic about why rosters shouldn’t be reduced. He cited player safety as a reason to keep rosters at 85 or more. He thinks 100 or so would be feasible.
Hugh Freeze has similar concerns at Auburn.
“The number of players is a real concern for us,” Freeze said. “We’re used to practicing a certain way. We’re not the NFL. We’re a team that practices physically.”
Heupel acknowledged that staying the way things are right now isn’t a realistic option, and some change is coming in this area, too.
“Yeah, definitely, at some point,” he said. “I don’t know what that figure will be. I don’t know what year it will be, but I’m sure it will happen.”
Kirby Smart is among those who don’t want to see the numbers go down.
“We feel very strongly that roster spots are important and walk-ons are important,” Smart said. “We’re here to determine where that fits.”
Smart knows the importance of walk-ons, having won consecutive national titles with quarterback Stetson Bennett, a one-time non-scholarship player who eventually rose to the starting role and led the Bulldogs to championships in 2021 and 2022.
There are several different perspectives on this issue.
For example, new Alabama coach Cullen DeBoer won an NAIA national title in Sioux Falls while fielding a roster smaller than any team at the FBS or SEC level.
“Obviously, there’s always a way,” he said of the challenge of a potentially smaller roster. “Any question you ask me, I’ll say there’s definitely a way to do it. Will it be drastically different than what we’re doing in terms of coaching and executing practice plans? Absolutely. But I’m always one to adapt with the times, so I think we’ll just have to do what we have to do.”
Texas coach Steve Sarkisian has a similar view, though he isn’t as concerned about whether the rule applies to everyone.
“Well, I think the challenge is adapting,” Sarkisian said. “I’ve said this all along, we live in this era of college football and you always have to adapt. When I took this job at Texas, we were still operating the old way and then the transfer portal came along, NIL came along, conference realignment came along.
“Now there’s a new settlement being made and there’s talk of reducing the number of players, but through all of that, we have to adapt. If we don’t adapt, and we don’t adapt, we wouldn’t be here. At the end of the day, if it’s the numbers, it’s the numbers. We have to adapt, adjust and find the best way to put our players in the best position.”
Lane Kiffin gave a bit of a shrug.
“I’m not sure what’s going to happen going forward,” he said, “It’s going to have a lot to do with the athletic director. Obviously, it’s going to happen. We’ll just adapt to whatever it is. I think we’ve adapted well to rule changes and different things, whether it’s the portal or NIL.”
Speaking of AD, University of Alabama’s Greg Byrne said roster changes are inevitable.
“We all have to be prepared to recognize that a new era has begun,” Byrne said. “It’s on all of us, myself included, to face difficult circumstances and try to maintain as much normalcy as possible. And we as ADs understand how important football is to the SEC and the opportunities they provide for all of the Olympic sports. We only have one sport that generates a healthy profit – football and men’s basketball – but we have 19 sports that don’t generate a profit.”
“So we have to be smart about how we manage that, but we all have to be mindful of that from an efficiency standpoint and Coach DeBoer and I have been talking about it.”
Florida AD Scott Stricklin sees the reality of the situation firsthand.
“There’s wear and tear in that game,” he said. “And by the way, it’s not just the sport we play or the sport we sponsor that has wear and tear. But there’s a lot of wear and tear in that sport. It makes me wonder. Again, I respect the coaches, but sometimes the way things have been done before doesn’t have to be the way things will be done from now on. It makes me wonder, potentially, is there a way we can do things differently, how we prepare, so that the safety aspect remains the same, but we can do better.”
These changes will be made in the future and will not impact the 2024-25 sporting calendar.
However, reading between the lines, it seems likely that these numbers won’t remain at their current levels for long.
Michael Casagrande is a reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter. translator or Facebook.
