My D26 has gotten a little bit of interest from a couple of colleges as a D3 Volleyball player.
I have heard, from parents with kids in other sports, that there is a coming “limit” on the number of athletic roster spots at D3 schools. Apparently the recruiting landscape is somehow changing in a negative way. But the parents who tell me this can’t really provide specifics off the top of their heads. They just tell stories of interest in their C25 kids suddenly drying up.
Can anyone please explain specifically what this is? My internet searches keep yielding D1 information where rosters/scholarships are apparently increasing.
In D1, the House vs. NCAA suit settlement involves a roster cap (which for many teams this will mean smaller rosters) and a lift on scholarship limits. The fact that a team “may” now award more scholarships does not mean they will. In fact, we have already seen scholarships be pulled from non-revenue sports to help fund increased scholarships and revenue payment to revenue athletes, namely football, men’s basketball and, to a much lesser extent, baseball. Title IX compliance is still a thing so, sadly, much of the impact is happening on the men’s side, including much more severe roster reductions.
None of this affects D3 on paper, but there is a trickle down effect expected. As P4 athletes get cut they will look for homes in other programs, creating a chain effect that will certainly reach D3. This has made the D3 recruiting landscape much tougher. While much of this is still up in the air, including which D1 conferences this will impact, many D3 coaches are trying to kick the ball down the line to see which D1 athlete might fall in their lap. This includes current D1 athletes, who will be cut and look for a new home in the fall.
Thank you. That explains why I could not find anything. D3 is experiencing a trickle down effect. And the parents that I was speaking with have male children which perhaps explains the disproportionate impact on them.
You can ask the coaches if they plan to have a roster limit. Some teams have always had a no cut policy, but do those players see much playing time? Do they even get uniforms? Are there JV teams they can play on/against?
Some players are very happy just being part of the team and okay to be the ‘practice team’ (worked for Rudy at ND). Service academies have HUGE teams in some sports. For other athletes, they don’t want to sit on the bench and don’t want to be the 40th player on a team when only the top 20 ever see action.
So ask. It might be fun to just be on the team and it might not be.
(The NCAA does limit the team size for tournaments as the NCAA pays the expenses, so even on top teams that have the JV teams and players who have seen playing time during the season, those players will not get to travel to the tournament on the NCAA’s dime)
There are a number of answers here, depending on the quality of the program, the school and the goals of the admissions department.
Top programs in a sport may expect to see some D1 or D2 athletes drop in their laps, but the bottom half of most D3 conferences are not very good at all and likely won’t improve much because students choose that school for other reasons. At top academic schools athletes sometimes gain a small advantage over other applicants, so this could potentially affect them at the margins. And some other schools recruit athletes heavily as a tool to increase enrollment but not necessarily with any promise of playing time. (For example my niece recently went to an NAIA school and found that she was one of a couple dozen recruited basketball players, which was very surprising to her.)
In most cases D3 is free to have whatever size roster they want, though there are limits on gameday rosters in some sports. St John’s (MN) has 180 guys on the football roster, which is about 10% of the student body, so call the coash and see what they do or you can check the website to see how things have been done in the past.
I’m guessing rather than a “roster limit,” they mean they are giving spots to fewer HS students because they’re anticipating wanting to pick up some transfers from D1 who lost their spots.
But even if there aren’t roster limits, ask your athlete what type of experience she wants. Does she want to go to Williams no matter what and would be happy sitting on the bench? Would she rather be a starter on a team that isn’t ranked as high academically or athletically? Would she rather split the difference and be a starter on a top team but not at her #1 academic pick? My daughter wanted to play so took a chance on a new team at a school she wanted to attend. I told her she’d get to play, but that they’d lose a lot. And that first year they did lose a lot. Next year lost less, but probably 50/50. Third and fourth years they went to the NCAA tournament. And she played all the time, all 4 years. Her friend went to BC, one of the top teams in the country and never played. She left the team after 2 years but loved BC, so it worked out for her too.
Your daughter just has to decide which situation is right for her. But ask about roster size.
Wow this is interesting. My S25 is looking at mostly D3 and I’m glad we ended up going that direction. I have not noticed that interest has dried up but he is a high level recruit. Probably won’t be a ton of change to D3 for 2025-26 but who knows.
This is huge, as most kids have spent their athletic lives to date just trying to get on the best team they can. Because it’s not just an athletic question, college is a bit of a break point where they can choose the level of play, which implies choosing the level of participation. Do you value the championship tshirt (without any floor time) or do you need to play every minute (but maybe not win) or something in the middle. There’s no right answer, just the answer that suits an individual. My DD went to a smaller D3 pond for her sport and got to be a big fish (4 time all conf, etc.) But she didn’t define herself by her sport so she didn’t need the D1 outcomes, YMMV.
I haven’t heard about any upcoming roster limits, but I’d welcome them. My daughter is on a D3 team where nine players sit out every game - you can only dress 21. It’s excessive and unreasonable.
COVID, NIL and the resultant increased transfer activity have certainly impacted roster sizes, but nothing compares to the strategy of over-recruiting pioneered at Adrian College under Jeff Docking as a way to grow the school/revenue. Every team at her school is over-recruited.
I’m not sure that squad size limits will cut down on over-recruiting if the coach is being told by administration to over-recruit to increase class size. It is more likely that the coach will still be told to over-recruit, and then make cuts once tuition checks clear.
Roster limits will force coaches to be more transparent with recruits. Coaches who mislead players due to administrative pressure to over-recruit will quickly develop poor reputations driving potential recruits away.
While some players are content with being part of a team, others prioritize playing time as a key aspect of their college experience. Honest coaches will be able to maintain their credibility, while those who are less forthcoming will face challenges in recruiting.
Most school’s websites give past teams with rosters and boxscores. They openly publish how much playing time anyone on the roster got in past years. In this case coaches don’t need to develop reputations, anyone can see if coaches carry lots of athletes who never see competition. Tracking old rosters to see how players progress is a really valuable tool when a recruit is researching programs.
If an athlete is cut at the start of their first year, they never show up on the roster. Future recruits might never know the person even showed up. Coaches can tell as many recruits as they want: “You are an important recruit for me, but my AD’s policy is that I have to have open tryouts, so everyone on the team has to officially tryout. If you show up fit and play like I know you can, you will have no problems making the team.”
Personally, I would rather have the public information.
Looking at the existing roster is key if your kid plays a “position” or has a specialty (e.g. sprint vs distance). PT is very dependent on the depth chart of the existing team minus seniors. Of course someone coming in behind your kid could be better, but that is the nature of athletics.
It will certainly depend on details, but old rosters and results will tell you some important general trends. If there are 35 athletes on a team and 15 don’t ever see the field, this tells you something. If you go back and look at old rosters and results, you might find that student athletes who don’t get on the field as first years eventually contribute as juniors and seniors, which brings some nuance to the situation. Alternatively, you might see 15 first-years who don’t play and then don’t come back the next year, or don’t even get a seat on the bench for four years. Different story entirely. If your kid comes in right away as a star, these trends might not matter, but lots of people think their kid will come in as a star.
Sometimes you have to go pretty deep with the research to see which players get quality time on the field and which are playing garbage time when the score is 15 to 1. Some high school kids love researching the statistics but most don’t have the time to look up how much playing time the subs got and then go to each game and figure out when those minutes might have been in the game (if that is even possible). Is a recruit going to look up if a swimmer got to swim in 2-3 meets in a row or just one at the beginning of the year and then not another for 5 weeks?
I could do some of it with my daughter’s college team and her conference because I had the code to watch games that had been recorded. I was obsessed with statistics, but even I wasn’t obsessed enough to track everyone’s playing time. The stats posted by the schools are the responsibility of the home team, and some aren’t very good at keeping those stats.
While publicly available rosters and player statistics (goals, assists, games played) have historically been helpful tools, the recent impacts of COVID-related extra year of eligibility and NIL-driven transfers have complicated the data analysis. The end of the COVID-related 5th year eligibility rule is one change, but the new transfer rules which allow players to transfer mid-season without penalty, have had a significant impact on roster dynamics.
However, my main concern remains twofold: 1) coaches often mislead recruits by omission, especially when they have specific application (and by extension enrollment) quotas to meet; and 2) the practice of carrying excessively large rosters (9-10 extra players) is unnecessary. Without roster limits, coaches can avoid cutting players and continue to lead them on with promises of guaranteed roster spots.
There can be very different dynamics at play here based on the selectivity of the school. For selective academic D3 (e.g. NESCACs, Swat, Pomona, etc…) many recruits are likely academics first and the recruiting boost is used to get them into a school that they otherwise might not get into (or at least ensure admission). For those families, their concern is how many positions can the coach support. Where they are on the depth chart and PT is important, but what they were after was admissions. Other schools use athletics as a way to increase full/near full pay enrollment. They are not particularly selective. These kids are selecting these schools because they want to continue their sport in college. Here they better understand roster size and where they fall on the depth chart.