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The NCAA threw college athletic departments another curveball last week, filing a brief that would allow “grandfather” exemptions to the upcoming roster caps from the House v. NCAA settlement. This provision would give schools the option — but not mandate — to exceed new roster limits temporarily, potentially saving scholarships for athletes who might otherwise lose their spots.
Some programs are already jumping on this opportunity. Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua told Yahoo Sports the Fighting Irish will honor roster spots for current athletes and welcome back those cut in the past year.
Florida State isn’t rushing to make the same commitment.
“We’re looking into it,” FSU athletic director Michael Alford told CBS Sports on Tuesday. “We’re getting back with our coaches to figure out which athletes are impacted. Where are they now? A lot of them left. So we’re running out that ground ball right now as we gather more information about what it all means and who’s considered grandfathered in. Now we’re going to find where those students are and have discussions with our coaching staffs.”
Alford didn’t specify a deadline for FSU’s decision, though time is clearly running short. The House settlement remains in limbo while the judge waits for objections from plaintiffs about the NCAA’s recent brief. Defendants then have until week’s end to respond — pushing any resolution into next week at the earliest.
“You’re running so many different trap doors right now because you’re working on so many different fronts,” Alford explained. “My budgets were due three weeks ago, and I’m running three different budgets depending on how the House case goes. We’re preparing for the July start of the fiscal year, so you’re trying to figure out what that means and where it’s going to land.”
The uncertainty is creating administrative chaos.
“You’ve run all these scenarios with your coaching staffs, trying to prepare for the ‘grandfathered in’ clause and what the roster limits mean,” Alford continued. “Right now, you’re just doing triple, quadruple the work going into the school year because you don’t know the final answer. You can predict and create decision trees, but you have a lot of them as you go through this process.”
The clock is ticking louder by the day. Many players have already signed revenue-sharing contracts — or in FSU’s case, memorandums of understanding — with a July 1 start date. As the House settlement negotiations drag deeper into May, schools face an increasingly compressed timeline to finalize decisions before athlete payments are scheduled to begin.
