How will Walk on work with roster limit

Not an educated guess...this is the answer:

The roster limit is firm, regardless of scholarship level. You can have 17 on fulls or 17 on nothing for XC. No scholarship limits anymore, just roster limits.

If a paid university coach works with an enrolled student they will need to be rostered. If they are recovering in the training room they will need to be rostered. Using athletics specific facilities like an athletes weight room will be limited to rostered athletes. At most schools, the track has public hours so a not rostered runner could use that.

Clubs will likely get bigger at some schools, and occasionally a school may even roster a club guy and bring them into a the program when a spot opens up. But club athletes will receive virtually none of the perks of a rostered athlete, and would not have access to the same coaching staff.

I don't foresee a full time coach recruiting to a club team, their attention will be focused on their NCAA squad.

You show at a team meeting, point at a slow or injured kid on scholarship, and say, “I Sir Wigginsbottom challenge thee to a duel at sunrise on the campus green. Four laps. Loser shall be banished forthwith and forfeit all athletic scholarships to the champion! No international seconds permitted.”

Real answer is it will likely only be scholarship athletes and recruited walk-ons who are guaranteed a roster spot during the recruiting process. I'd also guess with the lower rosters more recruited athletes will get some portion of a scholarship even if it's small. I'm not sure how realistic showing up and trying out was for any P4 program, but I highly doubt that'll happen anymore.

in revenue sports walkon is likely going away. they will all be paid. it's unclear what happens in nonrevenue like running. i think some will be paid and some won't be. there will then be some mix of conference and national roster limits for each sport. like i think there will be some upper NCAA limit but also some conference limits too.

the paid programs walkon disappears. everyone is paid. there is a short roster limit harder to make. XC teams shrink like 1/3 or more. TF shrinks too. this pushes runners down the pecking order and down the divisions.

the unpaid programs may still have walkons but within narrower roster limits, and rocket fueled by more guys trickling down due to roster limits on better teams. so even if walkon exists, there is less room for it and more competition as quality is pushed downward.

worse, until they sort the rules, right now, they don't even know what to do and are thus putting marginal people off. lock down the excellent ones. but if they don't know if the rules come in for next year, they can't go beyond anticipated limits, and might be generally nervous and conservative.

plus there's the transfer portal changes which will also provide unpredictability and possibly push talent downwards.

last point but particularly in this shifting and potentially difficult environment, i would not be the kid shooting for the last walkon spot at a D1. i always thought that was a nuts, precarious way to pursue recruiting. people generally do not set out to be the last guy on the bench of the football or soccer teams for obvious reasons. among them being,

(a) some kids way overshoot and their choice is a school the coach doesn't even want them.

(b) people legit in that position are usually told to come try out for their roster spot with zero guarantees. you could get in the place, train hard, and then still get cut.

(c) most people want firmer footing than that. perhaps a scholarship. at least a roster guarantee. perhaps a sense they are well situated within the team to compete for opportunities better and get more coaching spent on them. the flex of saying you are D1 aside, who guns for being the last guy on the bench on any team? you may not get many meets, but you will get all the practice.....

(d) in a world of transfer portal and shrinking rosters, plus normal recruiting, the last guy on any bench is in the most vulnerable spot. he's the first one they look to replace. i played D3 and about every year the last couple guys on the roster were gone for year 2. when a great miler recruit comes in, and he needs a slot, they don't drop the guy who used to be fastest and is on scholarship. they drop the very last walkon getting mile races.

which is you.

so i always suggest give yourself a variety of options. walkon, lower division scholarship, D3. then go with what makes sense at the end after the visits, admissions letters, and scholarship and aid offers. don't box yourself in. to me no one with good sense boxes themselves into trying to barely make a single sports team, no other option. and those seem to be the kids in the spring pouting, i got admitted but sensei won't notice me on can i walk on there.

The short answer is no if a team is at their roster limit. Which I might add could be less than 17 because the AD can tell the coach your roster limit is less than 17 if she or he wants.

This is the best thing that could happen to college sports. Run in club, get a life, focus on academics, chase chicks and party in your free time. If you are a natural talent, you will rise to the top.

It may help you to realize that some people may not look at 'getting a life' the same way you do and, to them, it may not be the 'best thing that could happen to college sports'.

Not saying your opinion is wrong or right just pointing out others might not have the same opinion as you.

Ahh yeah, I stated my opinion which is the entire premise of this crazy forum

Walk on just means no scholarship. Since the roster limits are smaller, there will be less people on the team. The school has their choice of how many scholarships to give to the athletes, it could be all of them or none of them. But in general, fewer people will be walk-ons because there are fewer spots. As someone said, club teams will get bigger/more competitive or D2/D3 will get more competitive.

1. Get shoes with your college loans

2. hammer training

3. go to the rec center for more training

4. Run home meet unattached and run faster than people on the team.

5. Get good grades. Show all of this to the coach. Tell them to portal the losers

6. let the cowboys ride

At Dickinson University in PA, left HS with a 48 400 and 1:55 800. He went to D3 Dickinson in the Centennial Conference.

Freshman year at Dickinson he got his 800 down to 1:50, made it to D3 Nationals

Sophomore year he got his 800 down to 1:49, made it to D3 Nationals

Maybe in his upcoming junior year, he wins the 800 d3 national championships. It took a 1:48.65 last year to do so. If so, maybe senior year he enters the transfer portal, maybe with a degree already in hand.

Maybe he goes to Penn as a grad student. Who’s top 800 runner ran a 1:48.49 last year. Maybe he drops enough to qualify for D1 Nationals for a trip to Oregon.

There are a lot of different paths to D1

You can have up to 17 walk ons on your roster.

If an athlete is rostered on Track but not XC they would be able to use all facilities/trainers etc., year round, no? I dont know about how the coaching would work but if a coach is also a track coach surely they are allowed to workout track athletes as well, maybe just not with the xc team and theyd have to workout solo, but the coach could surely still work with them.

will D3 have the same roster limit of 17?

No. I suspect high academic D3s with solid programs are going to get a lot more competitive and be better homes.

I went to Delaware in the early 90s we had this type of athletic department mandated cut my soph year I think it was 16 people for cross. The coach kind of snuck the 3-4 people that got cut into practice most of the time. Only slightly relevant to today.

As an aside to my knowledge we had literally no one on a running scholarship for xc- this is in D1. I imagine a few? of the track people were/should have been on one. We had a very good thrower who certainly should have been and a few crossover football players were on football scholarship who ran track as well- one xc guy was on a full academic. I remember a couple times people asking about scholarships in the locker room the quote from the coach was "We're closer to getting cut than to getting scholarships" which sadly/infuriatingly came to pass about 8-10 years after I left.

I have probably asked this before on here and don't remember but did anyone else have the experience of running on a D1 team with basically no scholarship athletes? Obv that is not supposed to happen lol I imagine there was some solidly creative accounting going on with the AD or something.