NCAA Football Scholarship Limits: A New Era for College Athletes

The landscape of college sports is undergoing a significant transformation, particularly concerning scholarship opportunities for student-athletes. The NCAA has officially approved changes to team roster sizes and scholarship limits, reshaping college sports. These updates open new doors for some high school graduates to compete at the next level, while narrowing opportunities for others. These changes stem from the House v. NCAA settlement. Starting in the 2025-2026 academic year, the NCAA eliminated most D1 scholarship limits, enabling all sports to distribute scholarships more flexibly among athletes. This is expected to have a significant impact on college football recruiting. Let's delve into the details of these changes and their potential implications.

Understanding the Scholarship Settlement Offer

The House v. NCAA settlement has paved the way for a new era of increased benefits for college athletes, according to Tim Sands, chair of the board and president at Virginia Tech. This settlement has led to significant changes in NCAA rules for Division I programs, particularly regarding scholarship limits. Instead of being limited to offering either a full or no scholarship in head count sports, NCAA member schools now have the flexibility to provide each student-athlete with a full, partial, or no scholarship, depending on their program’s strategy and funding.

Key Changes to Scholarship and Roster Limits

Several key changes are being implemented, starting in the 2025-2026 academic year, that will affect how college sports teams are structured and funded:

No Scholarship Cap: NCAA D1 schools will be able to offer scholarships to every athlete on their roster, eliminating previous sport-specific limits. Moving forward, NCAA rules for Division I programs will no longer include sport-specific scholarship limits. Instead, schools in the defendant conferences and others that opt in to the settlement rules and associated benefits to student-athletes will have roster limits, and schools will have the option to offer scholarships to any and all of those student-athletes. This change will dramatically increase the number of scholarships potentially available to Division I student-athletes, including more than doubling the possible number of scholarships that can be offered to women.
New Roster Limits: NCAA is introducing new roster limits that match or exceed current scholarship restrictions for each sport. New roster limits will be introduced for NCAA D1 sports for the 2025-2026 academic year. With scholarship caps gone, most programs will be able to offer more scholarships. However, they must follow the new NCAA roster limits for each sport. For example, NCAA football scholarship limits will have a roster cap of 105 players, up from 85. For college football, the limit will be 105, so schools can add an additional 20 scholarship athletes in that sport if they want to.

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Equivalency Sports: All sports will now be classified as equivalency sports, allowing schools to offer partial scholarships. All sports will now be classified as “equivalency sports,” allowing partial scholarships to be distributed to players. D1 FBS football, once a headcount sport, will now be classified as an equivalency sport. Of note, all sports will be “equivalency” sports under the new format, which means that partial scholarships are now an option for coaches in football and basketball. Those previously were “head count” sports, meaning that if a player was on scholarship, he or she had to be on a full scholarship. That creates some perhaps unnecessary roster flexibility.

Impact on Recruiting

The elimination of scholarship limits and the introduction of new roster limits are expected to have a significant impact on recruiting strategies for college sports teams. This flexibility has fundamentally changed recruiting.

Increased Scholarship Opportunities: With the move, roughly 790 new scholarships are available across the 40-plus NCAA sports. For example, football’s scholarship cap rose from 85 to a roster limit of 105, possibly adding 20 more scholarships for schools willing to offer the maximum. Power conference commissioners have finalized new roster-size limits, enabling athletic departments to distribute millions of dollars in new scholarships, particularly in football, baseball, softball, and volleyball. This expansion aims to provide more scholarship opportunities across various sports while balancing increases between men’s and women’s sports to maintain compliance with federal Title IX law.
Flexibility in Scholarship Distribution: Beginning in the 2025-26 academic year, schools can offer scholarships to their entire rosters, including partial scholarships in what were previously known as “head count sports.”
Potential for Increased Competition: More scholarships on offer may expand recruiting classes for the sake of more competition in camp, but it’s not like the depth chart’s getting any larger.

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Financial Implications for D1 Schools

Adding more scholarships across all sports could mean big financial changes for D1 schools. As more details come out, we’ll share how schools are managing these updates.

Revenue Sharing: Starting in 2025, schools can opt to share a “cap” of up to $20.5 million with their student-athletes, beginning July 1, 2025. A “cap” limits how much schools can pay. A tech platform, NILgo, will help schools track athlete compensation and ensure compliance.

Specific Sport Examples

The changes to scholarship and roster limits will affect different sports in various ways. Here are a few examples:

Football: Division 1 FBS teams can give out a maximum of 105 scholarships to athletes. The 105 FBS football scholarships will become equivalency scholarships, which means coaches can split them into partial rewards across the team, instead of the current 85 full-ride football scholarships.
Baseball: Baseball will be capped at 15 scholarships/roster spots, and maybe the largest change comes to baseball, which is going from an 11.7-scholarship limit to 34. For baseball, roster sizes will actually be shrinking (currently the limit is 40), but the scholarships available will nearly triple. Baseball programs don’t have to offer 34 scholarships, of course, and undoubtedly the vast majority of mid-majors won’t be able to.

The Role of Walk-Ons and Redshirt Offers

Walk-ons have historically been a big part of D1 programs because of current NCAA scholarship limitations. But with the new NCAA scholarship rules and roster limits starting in the 2025-26 school year, coaches will need to rethink how they manage scholarships and roster spots.

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Walk-On Opportunities: Football coaches have maintained through this process that they want to keep walk-ons a part of the culture of the sport, and it’ll be a lot easier to reward those players than it has been under the 85-scholarship limit.
Redshirt and Blueshirt Offers: To make room on the roster, teams can extend different types of offers. Redshirt: The student-athlete will have a scholarship but can’t compete for one year. Blueshirt: Like a redshirt, the student-athlete will practice with the team but won’t be allowed to play for a year. Note: With the new proposed NCAA scholarship rules and roster limits starting in 2025-2026, the exact impact on walk-ons and redshirt offers for D1 FBS football programs are uncertain and will vary across different sports and schools.

Academic Eligibility

Athletes must meet both athletic and academic criteria in order to get a football scholarship. The athletic criteria are largely up to the football program at each individual school. Every coach has different methods for determining which athletes are right for his roster, which is why the recruiting process is so crucial. If you’re not sure what a college coach looks for athletically in your athlete’s position, check out the roster.

NCAA Eligibility Center Requirements: The NCAA Eligibility Center has specific academic requirements that athletes must meet to be eligible to compete at either the NCAA D1 or D2 levels. We’ve included the D1 requirements below. A good rule of thumb is that, if an athlete meets or exceeds the D1 requirements, they will be eligible at the D2 level, as well. They must complete 16 core courses and receive a minimum GPA of 2.3 in those courses.
Core Course Requirements: The core course requirements are as follows: four years of English; three years of math (Algebra 1 or higher); two years of science (including one year of lab, if offered); two years of social science; and four additional years of English, math, science, religion, philosophy, or foreign language.
Importance of Academics: Academics are now the currency that unlocks opportunity. With coaches able to spread their scholarship dollars further, student-athletes with strong grades and academic merit rise to the top. With larger rosters and more scholarships available, academic eligibility is now in the spotlight because more is at stake. The NCAA requires student-athletes to meet certain academic standards to participate in college sports. Failing to meet these requirements can prevent a student-athlete from competing or even being rostered, regardless of their athletic abilities.

Navigating the Changes: Tips for Athletes

For athletes navigating these changes, here are some practical tips to stay ahead:

Stay Informed and Ask Questions: Keep an eye on updates from schools and the NCAA regarding the new rules. To understand how roster limits might affect you, we recommend staying in touch with coaches. Be sure to talk with college coaches about how these changes could impact their program and your recruiting plans.
Educate Yourself and Follow NCSA: Learn about the new rules and their implications. Educate Yourself and Follow NCSA: Learn about the new rules and their implications.
Show Your Value and Focus on Performance: Highlight your skills to coaches, demonstrating your versatility and value. Athletes must show that they have the ability to make an immediate, positive impact at their position or they need to demonstrate that they have the potential to develop into a key player. This is why finding the right division level athletically is so important. A recruit might technically qualify to play at a D1 school, but they could be a more impactful athlete at a D2 or NAIA school. Layered on top of athletic ability, recruits need to be academically eligible to compete at the school. Not only do they need to meet the NCAA and/or NAIA academic eligibility requirements, but they need to comply with the school’s specific entrance requirements, which are often tougher to meet the NCAA eligibility requirements.
Start with a free recruiting profile to connect with an NCSA Recruiting Specialist: Your NCSA Recruiting Coach is here to guide you through the football scholarship process.

Verbal Offers and Social Media

With the NCAA allowing recruiting contact through social media, it’s become common for college coaches, especially at the D1 level, to send out “official offers” via social media to high school juniors and seniors.

Verbal Offers: Because D1 football programs are so large, coaches will extend verbal offers to multiple athletes at the same position in the same recruiting class. The idea is that they will lose a few of those recruits to other programs, academic ineligibility or other factors. So, when everything shakes out, they should still have all their positions covered. When an athlete receives a verbal offer, they can ask the coach where they are at on the coach’s list of recruits.
Non-Binding Offers: This is great news, but remember: until you sign with that school, it’s still a non-legally binding verbal offer.

Scholarship Security

Scholarships are offered on a year-to-year basis, so more can be rescinded in the coming seasons if a program’s budget is cut or rosters become jam-packed with upperclassmen. This doesn’t mean recruits should necessarily take the first offer they get, but they should not wait too long.

Other Considerations

Honest Insight: The repercussions of the scholarship and roster updates will vary by college or university. Schools may increase their roster limits without increasing the available scholarship dollars. We might also see more rostered student-athletes receiving smaller scholarship packages. In the new model, NCAA DI schools that opt into the House Settlement are permitted to offer a scholarship to each player on a sport’s roster up to the new roster limits.
Division 1 FCS Programs: Division 1 FCS programs can still provide a maximum of 63 total scholarships.
Division 2 Schools: NCAA D2 schools are limited to 36 full or partial scholarships per year. NCAA football scholarships can be awarded by both D1 and D2 schools-D3 colleges and universities do not give out any athletic scholarships.
NAIA Scholarships: NAIA football scholarships can be awarded by any fully funded member college or university. The NAIA does have its own set of academic eligibility criteria that student-athletes must meet, but they don’t have set recruiting rules like the NCAA.

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