Why roster caps won't impact Indiana football, Curt Cignetti as much as other programs

Indianapolis Star

2 days ago

BLOOMINGTON — College football coaches coast to coast will spend this week breaking into their preseasons under the umbrella of rules changes fundamentally altering their approach to fall camp.
That might not, it turns out, apply to Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti.
The terms of the House vs. NCAA settlement, approved this summer, introduced roster caps for all college sports. None will have been so culturally affected as football.
Scholarship limits remain the same: Football programs can put a maximum of 85 players on full rides, or break those up depending upon coach's preference.
What's changed are total roster limits — scholarship and non-scholarship (walk-on) players alike. Where programs used to be allowed to carry as many walk-ons as they wanted, now no roster can exceed 105 players.
So, when programs who used to break camp with as many as 120 start practice this week, they'll do so with scaled-down numbers. Numbers Cignetti won't struggle to adapt to.
'Truthfully, I've always been a small-roster guy,' he said after Indiana's first fall practice Wednesday. 'I don't think we've ever had 110 guys on our roster, and most years we've been at or below 105. So really, it's business as usual.'
Roster caps were among the most controversial pieces of the House settlement.
They were designed in part to keep programs from exploiting the rescinded limit on scholarships. Because the settlement now allows schools to add more scholarships in any given sport over previous limits, should they so choose, there was a fear schools might dramatically expand rosters and hoard talent from their competitors.
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Any school adding scholarships must pay for them out of its $20.5 million revenue-sharing budget, up to a cap of $2.5 million in additional spend.
Critics pointed out the settlement was not meant to and should not take opportunities away from players, scholarship or otherwise, leading to a compromise allowing players on rosters before the settlement's approval to be grandfathered in. Using football as an example, any player added to a roster now must factor into the 105-player roster math, while those on roster prior to the exception are exempt from it.
That means for the moment, football programs might be closer to their pre-House numbers. Indiana, for example, began practice Wednesday with 106 players on its roster, including those grandfathered in.
'I don't like a real big team, 130 guys,' Cignetti said. 'I want everybody in the organization on the football team to have a role and be the right kind of people, because everybody affects somebody else positively or negatively.'
Even given the exception, in reality, many walk-ons who might have qualified for that exemption have already moved on, having been informed of a need to make other arrangements as far back as last winter. Coaches had to anticipate the looming roster cap and plan accordingly, and by the time the grandfather provision was introduced, many players had already found new homes.
Which means the numbers aren't likely to be what they once were, a problem that might seem insignificant but still creates challenges.
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There are cultural considerations, at schools like Nebraska and Kansas State, which have storied traditions of walk-on development and participation.
Many programs have at least some history of walk-on success stories — Cignetti, for example, took defensive lineman James Carpenter as a walk-on at James Madison, before Carpenter followed his coach to IU. Carpenter eventually appeared in 53 games for Cignetti, with 50 starts, earning honorable mention All-Big Ten honors in 2024.
And most functionally, walk-ons provide extra bodies, making scout-team and drill work more functional with more players to fill the necessary spots on the field. Fewer non-scholarship players probably can mean changing the structure and pace of practice.
Cignetti remains unconcerned. His working process, he said, hasn't changed much at all.
'For us it's business as usual, and the size of our roster is really no different than it's been most years,' Cignetti said. 'Probably a little bigger. There are a number of years I've been in the 90s.'