RADICAL Change Is Coming To the NCAA — Are You Ready For 10-Man XC Rosters? How House v. NCAA Could Reshape the College Track & Field World

Collegiate sports are in a period of immense change. In the last five years, athletes have been granted the ability to earn money from their name, image, and likeness (NIL), the transfer portal has exploded, and the latest game of conference musical chairs has resulted in the likes of Texas, Oklahoma, Oregon, and USC switching conferences and the destruction of the Pac-12 as we know it. Yet the biggest change – particularly when it comes to track & field – may still be yet to come. 

“I think about it 3 a.m. every single night when I wake up,” says North Carolina coach Chris Miltenberg. “If you’re a college coach and you’re not waking up at 3 a.m. thinking about this, you’re not paying attention.”

Miltenberg is referring to the settlement in House v. NCAA, for which Judge Claudia Wilken of the Northern District of California granted preliminary approval on October 7. The settlement, which would resolve three separate antitrust lawsuits (House v. NCAA, Hubbard v. NCAA, and Carter v. NCAA), would allow schools to pay athletes directly via a revenue sharing agreement. Any school that opts into the agreement would be allowed to pay athletes up to 22% of the average annual revenue for a Power 5 conference school — a total expected to be more than $20 million in 2025-26 and which could rise over time.

But much of that money is expected to go to athletes in the revenue producing sports: football and men’s basketball. When it comes to track & field and cross country, the more immediate impact concerns roster size. Schools that opt into revenue sharing are also subject to new limits on scholarships and roster sizes across all sports. In most cases, that means the opportunity to offer more scholarships but with smaller roster sizes.

In track & field, for instance, both rosters and scholarships would be capped at 45 athletes per sex. That’s a massive increase in potential scholarships (the previous limits were 12.6 for men and 18 for women) but a decrease in roster size, which was previously uncapped. Cross country rosters, also previously uncapped, would be limited to a maximum of 17 athletes (any scholarships would count against the track limit of 45, assuming the athlete competes in both sports).

Photo courtesy James B Daves/NCAA

Some college track coaches are excited about the potential for adding scholarships and attracting even more elite talent to the NCAA. Others are more concerned about the roster limits and where that extra scholarship money is going to come from. No one knows exactly what it will all look like. Oklahoma State head coach Dave Smith likened it to trying to predict the stock market. Mississippi State head track coach Chris Woods agrees.

“This thing is so new that if anybody is talking in definitives, they’re lying,” says Woods.

If House v. NCAA receives final approval in April, as expected, the new roster and scholarship limits would come into effect with the 2025-26 academic year. Which means coaches are already scrambling to adjust to the new reality as they assemble their rosters for next year, whether that means recruiting fewer athletes or cutting some who are already on the team. 

Over the past two months, LetsRun.com spoke to more than 20 NCAA coaches about their hopes, worries, and concerns about the impact of House v. NCAA. Here is what we learned.

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Don’t expect many — if any — schools to hand out 45 track scholarships

There are still a few hurdles to be cleared before the House v. NCAA settlement is finalized (you can find a list of key dates here), and there has been pushback from athletes (and their parents) who are worried about their roster spots evaporating — Yahoo Sports reported that the law firm MoloLamken is drafting an objection to the settlement for just that reason. But if the settlement is finalized, it would reshape the financial landscape of collegiate athletics in the United States. 

Under the terms of the settlement, the NCAA would owe $2.8 billion in retroactive damages to former collegiate athletes who were prevented from earning NIL money from 2016-21 — and around $1.6 billion of that would come by withholding future revenue to NCAA schools (the rest would come from NCAA reserves). Plus there is the revenue sharing with current athletes – which could be more than $20 million per year at the biggest schools. All of that money has to come from somewhere, which means that it is unlikely any school maxes out its scholarships in track & field.

“The University of Washington isn’t able to fund 45 full scholarships,” says Washington head coach Maurica Powell. “And my peer institutions, my good friends in this sport who I’ve spoken with, I don’t know anyone whose school can do that…It’s scary because at the end of the day, we’re all operating with less revenue. Something’s gotta give. That’s just math.”

Even if a school does have money to offer additional scholarships, it’s no guarantee they will go to the track team. Football’s scholarship limit went will increase from 85 to 105. And baseball, which has become very popular in the SEC, will go has gone from 11.7 to 34. One SEC assistant coach told LetsRun he met with an administrator at his school in June about potential increases in scholarships.

“The quote was ‘baseball generates revenue, so they will get it,'” the coach says. “Money walks and talks in athletics departments nowadays. And if you can generate money, you have a leg up, no matter how successful or unsuccessful you are. Track doesn’t generate anything.”

There is another reason why no school may max out its track scholarships. Any new athletic scholarships beyond the previous limit will count against the revenue sharing cap, up to $2.5 million. So if the University of Florida decides it wants to award 20 scholarships in men’s track instead of 12.6, that’s the cost of 7.4 scholarships — or hundreds of thousands of dollars — that cannot be used to pay football or basketball players.

In addition to scholarships, NCAA schools are currently allowed to distribute Alston Awards — up to $5,980 per athlete annually. Under the terms of the House v. NCAA settlement, that money would also count against the revenue sharing cap.

Women Have The Leg Up

Then there are the Title IX ramifications. Title IX requires that male and female athletes receive scholarship dollars proportional to their participation. Which means any school that wants to add 20 football scholarships and 20 baseball scholarships would have to offset that by adding 40 scholarships in women’s sports. Notre Dame head coach Matt Sparks said his program will receive a bump in women’s scholarships and expects many schools will follow suit to help balance additional men’s scholarships in other sports.

“That is a common theme I’ve heard rumored across especially the SEC and Big 10, with their women’s side getting a significant scholarship increase,” Sparks says.

(Kevin Morris photo)

Across the NCAA, athletic departments will have to choose which non-revenue sports to focus on. This is already happening, of course — even now, not every school hands out 12.6 scholarships in men’s track. Miltenberg told LetsRun that UNC will receive a bump in track scholarships. Five years from now, he expects the best teams in cross country and track to become even better than they are now as the resource gap between programs grows.

“I feel really, really grateful, stoked, excited, that I am in a place today that massively values success in Olympic sports,” Miltenberg says. “Everybody is going to have to pick their spots — is it track, is it soccer, is it lacrosse? — in addition to football and basketball. So I think you’re just going to see consolidation at the top, even more than we already have…and it was already a pretty consolidated thing.”

There will still be pressure on athletics departments to spend heavily in the revenue sports over the next few years. The Big 10’s TV rights contract is up in 2030, the Big 12’s in 2031, and the SEC’s in 2034.

“There will be an arms race or mad dash for a lot of institutions to try to make sure they’re successful and competitive in those main sports so that when their potential new conference realignment comes or their new TV deals are done that your institution makes the cut,” says Iowa State coach Jeremy Sudbury.

The richest conference in the country is responding to the mad dash by erecting guardrails. The SEC is home to eight of the top 11 athletic departments in 2023-24 in terms of revenue, per USA Today. It is also the most successful conference in track & field, putting six men’s teams and seven women’s teams in the top 10 of last year’s NCAA outdoor championships in Eugene. Yet the SEC plans on imposing its own limits on scholarships in multiple sports, which are lower than the ones determined by the House v. NCAA settlement.

10-Man XC Rosters In the SEC?

This is both good and bad news for track. The good news is that SEC schools may not max out their scholarships in the revenue sports: Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger reported that for the 2025-26 academic year, the SEC has set its own scholarship limit of 85 in football (rather than 105) and could impose a 25-scholarship limit in baseball (rather than 34). The bad news: multiple sources told LetsRun.com that the SEC is planning on instituting roster caps of 10 for men’s cross country and 35 for men’s track & field (the women’s caps would remain at 17 and 45). The Big 10 may also follow suit by instituting its own caps below the 17 and 45 limits, though in that case, the exact numbers are still TBD.

Such a small roster size would leave cross country teams with little room for development, with almost every new athlete expected to contribute immediately. It will also force track/XC directors to make hard decisions. Would a dominant track program like Florida field a 10-person cross country team knowing that those 10 athletes would all need to fit into a 35-person track & field squad? Would some athletes run cross country and not track? There are more questions than answers at this point. One SEC coach told LetsRun that the 10-person limit “will kill some [cross country] programs.” Arkansas coach Chris Bucknam said he could not confirm the 10-athlete XC roster limit, but he will continue to recruit distance runners if it does come into effect.

“Alls I can tell you is as long as I’m here, cross country will be an important part of our program,” Bucknam says.

There is another option for schools adding football and/or baseball scholarships: remove men’s scholarships in a sport like track & field, which would allow them to both save money and comply with Title IX. While some coaches LetsRun spoke to expected to receive a modest bump in men’s scholarships, many said they were fighting just to keep the scholarships they currently have. One SEC assistant says that if schools decide to go that route, “it could be the slow death of men’s track & field.”

Arkansas men on the 2021 NCAA XC podium. Full SEC XC teams may not be much bigger in 2025. (Photo by Ben Sheehan)

The doomsday scenario: in order to cover the costs of paying athletes in the revenue sports, athletic departments decide to save money by cutting the entire cross country and track & field program. Currently, track programs enjoy some protection because the NCAA requires every Division I school to sponsor at least 14 sports (16 if the school plays FBS football) and men’s and women’s cross country, indoor, and outdoor track count as six separate sports. But if those minimums were to change, a number of programs could be at risk. More than ever, the pressure is on coaches to justify the existence of their programs and work with alumni to raise funds and show there is interest in preserving track & field and cross country.

“Obviously Oregon’s not going to reduce men’s track & field and cross country to a club sport,” says Harvard coach Alex Gibby. “We know that. They’ve got a significant benefactor with a vested interest. So I do think that’s where some of these investment strategies land – the individual interests of the department. Not just the AD, but the alumni that can create pressure and fund these programs.”

Texas A&M head coach Pat Henry believes that his school, which spent nearly $40 million on an outdoor track that opened in 2019, will continue to support the men’s track & field program.

“Of course I’m concerned but I still feel like our institution is going to support our sports, all of them,” Henry says. “I don’t think from a monetary standpoint, Texas A&M is in a situation to where we can’t afford to do that…We can afford to do it. It’s whether or not we want to afford to do it.”

But Henry also believes that those in charge of the sport may need to think about changing the way it is presented at the collegiate level.

“Maybe we need to start making money,” Henry says. “We’ll never make enough to pay for ourselves, but we still need to show our contribution. Track people don’t want to think that way. Every other sport thinks that way.”

Get ready for roster cuts

If you think the transfer portal is wild now, just wait until the House v. NCAA settlement is approved. NCAA schools that opt into the revenue sharing agreement will have to comply with the new roster limits of 17 and 45, and they will likely have to comply as soon as the 2025-26 season (currently, no plans have been announced for any sort of transition phase). That means that there will not be room for a lot of athletes currently on NCAA rosters — and perhaps no room for some incoming freshmen who had been promised spots.

Here are the current roster sizes (per each school’s website) of the schools that finished in the top 10 at the 2023 NCAA cross country championships. Of the 20 teams, only five have XC rosters at 17 or fewer athletes:

*Oklahoma State and Texas list combined track/XC rosters; we considered any athlete listed as “distance” as part of the XC roster

It’s a similar story when it comes to the top 10 finishers at last year’s NCAA outdoor track championships. Only eight of the 20 teams are under the new 45-athlete limit.

The cross country number of 17 may not be a “hard” cap. Middle-distance athletes who aren’t expected to contribute in cross country could be converted to track-only athletes, while athletes redshirting in cross country could be stashed on the track roster for a year until they are ready to race.

And schools who decide not to opt into the revenue-sharing agreement – the Ivy League is expected to be among this group – would not be bound by roster limits at all.

Historically, BYU has kept a large roster and coach Ed Eyestone credits it as one of the reasons for the team’s enduring success. He notes that Josh McAdams, who went on to become a 2008 Olympian in the steeplechase, began as a walk-on.

“We were talking the other day in the office: Kenneth Rooks, would he have had a spot on the team, given he came about as a freshman as a 1:53/4:11 kid?” Eyestone says.

Eyestone concluded that, had there been a 17-athlete limit when Rooks, the 2024 Olympic silver medalist in the steeple, enrolled in 2018, he probably would have made it. But it would have been close. And now in the era of superspikes, those times would likely not be enough to make it at BYU.

“The day of true walk-ons, people who just surprise you and show up on your doorstep, with the new legislation and new limitations, those days might be disappearing,” Eyestone says.

Already, coaches say, the transfer portal has changed the way they build their teams. Coaches are judged on how their teams perform at conference and national meets, and many are saving a scholarship or two for a proven transfer who can help their team right away rather than using that spot on a freshman who might take a few years to develop.

“If you’re in the Big 10 or the SEC or the ACC and you are trying to score a point – be 8th or 7th or 6th — in one of those conferences, it’s not going to be the 9:05 [high school 3200m] guy that you can recruit that is going to come in and score as a freshman,” says New Mexico coach Darren Gauson.

As rosters contract, the portal could become even more important. Washington’s Powell is trialing a strategy in which she recruits high school runners one year and transfers/international athletes the next (her most recent women’s distance class featured seven transfers and zero high schoolers). Powell says she still likes to develop athletes but “somebody needs to score” while the younger runners gain their sea legs. Hence her unique solution.

“I don’t know if this is the answer,” Powell says. “But I’m trying it.”

It is possible that, with additional scholarships, more of the top talent will flow to traditional powerhouses. But coaches also expect a massive trickle-down effect as top programs trim their rosters to fit the new limits of 17 and 45. Athletes who no longer fit on a power conference roster will find a home at mid-majors. Mid-major athletes who no longer fit could end up at a DII or DIII school.

“If I was still coaching at Northern Iowa,” says Bucknam, “and I’m looking at rosters being trimmed, I’m telling my athletic director, ‘Hey, I’m going to pick up some good guys that can’t end up at one of those Power 4 schools.'”

Nick Polk, head coach of Lipscomb of the Atlantic Sun conference, says he has already seen the effect while recruiting this year’s crop of high schoolers.

“This fall has been the most attractive we’ve ever been in men’s recruiting and I don’t think that’s a coincidence,” says Polk. “I think a lot of that is the House settlement stuff coming up.”

Iowa State’s Sudbury says that a few years from now, he could envision a world where college track and cross country reaches a “minor league/pro league kind of setup with the transfer portal.” An athlete might enroll at a smaller school for a year or two and, should they find success, would then look to transfer to a larger, better-funded program for their final seasons.

“We’re already kind of operating like that a little bit with how easy it is for athletes to be able to move,” Sudbury says.

What’s next?

While no one knows exactly what college track & field and cross country will look like in a few years, every coach agrees that House v. NCAA is going to have a major impact.

“I’ve been in the game 40 years and this is the biggest change that’s going to come to our sport,” says Providence coach Ray Treacy.

If athletic departments are going to be sharing upwards of $20 million revenue annually, non-revenue sports may have to start finding ways to trim their budgets. Multiple coaches suggested track and cross country could move to a more regionalized model — fewer cross-country flights and hotel stays to chase qualifying marks and more local competitions.

Outdoors, the NCAA regional meets — technically the “First Round” of the NCAA Outdoor Championships — could be on the chopping block. The NCAA does not cover any of the costs for attending the meet, which lasts four days, and many schools also have to cover the costs of housing and feeding their athletes who stay on campus once the semester is over in order to keep competing. The NCAA does cover some travel and lodging for the national championship, but not everything. For a strong team sending 40 or 50 athletes to regionals and a dozen to NCAAs, those costs can really add up.

“Last year, we spent $450,000 between the regional and final round competition, just for us to keep our athletes here, go to the meets, hotels, all that,” says one SEC coach. “The NCAA reimbursed us $31,000.”

Virginia coach Vin Lananna — who also serves as president of USATF — says college track & field is entering an “existential moment.” It has long been obvious that, were the NCAA to ever start compensating athletes, there would be big questions to answer about the fate of nonrevenue sports. And as the NCAA has taken steps toward that model over the last few years, Lananna says, those involved with running college track and cross country have taken a short-sighted approach rather than trying to plan for the future. Now, he says, everyone must reckon with what that means, including the possibility of programs being cut.

“I don’t want to create a panic, but anyone who is not thinking about that is making a big mistake,” Lananna says. “The unfortunate piece about it is that forever, track & field has had a powerful message. And I don’t believe that we collectively – myself included – have done the best job of telling our powerful story or exposing our powerful story on the value the sport of track & field provides in an educational environment. We cover it all. We are the most diverse sport. We are a sport that is global. We are a sport that provides access to education that those young men and women may not have that opportunity to access.”

The NCAA is also the best track & field development system in the world. Of the 34 medals won by American track & field athletes at the 2024 Olympics, 31 were earned by athletes who competed in the NCAA — that’s nearly a quarter of all medals won by Americans across all sports in Paris. Plenty of other countries have benefited from NCAA track as well. In addition to the 31 American medals, 24 track & field athletes from other countries won medals in Paris after spending time in the NCAA.

And it goes beyond simply competing in the NCAA. Many American Olympians are still coached by NCAA coaches, train at NCAA facilities, and compete at events hosted by NCAA schools.

The entire 2024 Olympic men’s 1500m podium consisted of former NCAA champions (Kevin Morris photo)

“If we start stripping away those, I think the US performances at the Olympic and world level become incredibly negatively impacted,” Lananna says. “…That story has not been told and it is not widely understood. So it’s very important that everyone look at this and start telling that story as often as possible and to whomever will listen.”

Everyone involved in collegiate track & field — athletes, coaches, and administrators — will have to face a new set of challenges moving forward. It is a volatile time in the sport, but a number of coaches said the most stressful part was having to adapt to changes without knowing exactly what those changes will be.

“Just tell me the rules and we’ll play by them,” Gauson says.

One thing is certain, though: change is coming.

“Do I think there’s going to be some rough patches along the way? Yes,” says Woods, the Mississippi State coach. “Do I think collegiate athletes or collegiate track & field is going to completely blow up and disappear in front of our eyes in the next five years? Absolutely not.

“I think those that can adapt will survive. I think those that cannot adapt will perish. So my suggestion to everybody is to figure out a way to adapt.”