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Dugout Dish: In the Clubhouse with EMD | NCAA Roster Limit Update · Dugout Dish Baseball Recruiting Podcast powered by EMD Baseball

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign welcome to this week's edition of in the Clubhouse with EMD Baseball. I'm Andy Kira Kutis, joined by my wonderful co host Keith Glasser. How we doing?
• 0:18
  Speaker B: Great. How are you?
• 0:20
  Speaker A: Good. The House versus NCAA hearing took place yesterday. We're filming this on April 8th. Took place yesterday in Northern California on April 7th. A lot of talk around the distribution of money, the length of time at which student athletes would be eligible for it, which for our intents and purposes is not all that impactful from a recruiting perspective. But the roster limits conversation came into play. There has not been a clear resolution, but I think going into this, much of the anticipation was that we're going to be going to 34 for Division 1 this fall with the anticipated date for marking your 34 man roster as December 1st, with a potential fall roster cap of 38. All of that, as we've stated in previous podcasts, is still TBD has been talked about at the ABCA Convention with the Rules Committee. People have, have weighed in with their opinions on how it should move forward, but it had seemed like we're going to go to 34 this upcoming fall and that would be the roster limit moving forward. The result of this hearing is that, and it was one of the main points that the judge presiding over this case had requested that the lawyers go back and do a little bit more work on what this might look like. And she had suggested possibly kind of tearing the roster implementation. So I think that was probably the big takeaway here and that there's potential for this to be a little bit of a slower burn to get to that 34 than we had originally anticipated. But once again, I don't think anything has, you know, been determined. I think they're going to be coming back together either in a week or two weeks with some improved language around a few specific points which one of, one of which was the, the roster limit. So what do you, what are your thoughts on this, Coach?
• 2:41
  Speaker B: Yeah, I think the, not that it was a big nothing burger, but I, I think the one thing that was, I don't, I guess I don't want to say eye opening, but I think.
• 2:53
  Speaker A: That.
• 2:55
  Speaker B: You have to keep in mind that it's not just baseball that this is surrounding. Right. It's all, it's all sports and NCAA. So, you know, 40 to 34 in baseball is, you know, it's a decent number of guys. You know, again, we're only one recruiting cycle away from having been at 35 for a very long time. So it's not like you're, you're taking a step back too far. But, you know, there are other sports that, you know, a couple of the articles I read, like cross country, they keep like 30 right now and they're going to 17. You know, that's a, that's a substantial cut in a roster. You know, for, for my non. Math people out there like me, you know, that's almost 50% of your roster is being cut, you know, so that's a substantial amount of guys that'd be like going from 40 to 20 in baseball, obviously, you know, so I think a lot of the things that she, that the judge she seems to be worried about is if that, you know, not specifically in baseball, but in some of these other sports where there are massive roster cuts, what is that doing to student athletes in those sports? Which I think is a fair question to ask given the gravity of what all of this is. Right. So, you know, I believe they're meeting again next week with a lot of the stuff I read about, you know, kind of trying to figure out what the roster thing looks like. And I think that, you know, it, it could be a gradual thing, right? Like, it seems like that might be what they're going to do or they're going to quote, unquote, grandfather men, where if you're going to be on the roster in the fall of this year, like you're on the roster until subsequently you either remove yourself or whatever, you know, but going that whole next recruiting cycle is when your rosters are going to have to get trimmed down to, you know, whatever number that is, you know, so if it's baseball, maybe it does stay at 40 for another four years, but come 20, 26, 27, 28, 29, you know, 20, 29, 20, 30, like you're at 34. You know, I don't know what that really is, what that's going to do to recruiting. I don't know what that's. It' whole. It's a wild kind of concept to think about if we're just going to grandfather people in because the transfer portal is not going away, which would then mean that it's just going to be a free for all in the transfer portal for another three or four years into a whole recruiting cycle until we get to 34. You know, I do think that probably in baseball and some of these other sports, they would prefer if we just ripped the band aid off and went right at it and just went to 34 and said, let's just do it now instead of trying to kick the can down the road for another three, four years. But you know, this is, this is a completely different, you know, this is uncharted territory. And I do think part of it too, you know, in the, a lot of the confusion, some can lie with, there's, there's different rules in different jurisdictions when it comes to nil money and stuff like that. Like, there's state level rules, you know, they're, I know tomorrow they're, they're going to Capitol Hill in D.C. to, to lobby for federal help in this because they want some federal statutes to be able to kind of say, like, all right, federally, this is what's regulated so that we can kind of go over the states from that standpoint. So, like, there's still a lot that remains to be seen with this. I, I, I think the roster thing is just getting a little bit more convoluted with, with after reading everything that came out yesterday and today, that it could be, you know, we could grandfather people in. It could be a slow burn to get to 34. It could be, you know, I mean, who knows? Maybe it's like you're going to be at 39 next year and then 38, then 37, then 34. You know, I, I, I don't know what that looks like. This is all conjecture in my mind, but there's a ton of different ways they can do this. And I don't necessarily know if any of them are clean. You know what I mean? Like, it's, even if you rip the band aid off and go to 34, it ain't going to be clean. Right. Like you're talking about getting rid of, you know, six roster spots right now at the Division 1 level, you know, and then if you're, if it's a slow burn, you know, one or two a year for the next three or four years, like it's still kind of the same, you know, muddled mess that we're in from a transfer portal standpoint. So, you know, I, I don't know what the correct answer is. I, I ultimately think that they're going to try to do, you know, what's best for the interest of the student athlete, which I think is the right thing to do. You know, I think the other side of it is that a lot of people are getting jammed up from the standpoint of, you know, this is affecting incoming student athletes where, you know, it has, we've seen that, right. Like we, we saw people get dumped in the fall anticipating 34 for next year, you know, but I think you can make the argument that if this went to 34, coaches are going to look at their roster, roster right now as a whole and be like, where can we trim down to get 34? Like, we might really like our incoming freshman class, and we can get into the portal and get three or four more guys because we know how active we can be in it with this year. And you might be talking about, you know, juniors, you know, juniors who are going to be, you know, rising seniors, rising juniors, rising sophomores that are getting caught on programs because they just don't see it as a viability for them over the course of the next one to three years. So, hey, let's just hit the reset button now because we have to go to 34 and we'll get rid of these, you know, four, five, six, seven guys. And the portal is going to be full of players we can fill from there and from the junior college ranks to get our program to the. To where we want it to go, you know. So I don't necessarily think that it's just going to be incoming players that are affected. I think there's going to be a substantial amount of players who are currently on rosters that can be affected by this ruling as well.
• 9:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, I would actually argue that there'll be more current rostered players that are going to be affected by this than, than there will be incoming freshmen. I think some of the pain has been felt by kids already this past fall from, specifically from a baseball perspective. You know, we've all heard stories of guys getting, getting dumped and coaches using the anticipated roster cuts as a, as a way to get ahead of it. Right? Like, if, if, you know you're going to have to cut six, you know, you do the math between how many seniors are going to graduate versus the guys that you're going to currently have on the roster when you're incoming class. And you start to figure out all, if we need to get to 34, we've got 30, you know, 30 guys who are coming back or 28 guys that are coming back. And we've got nine guys coming in. We're at 37. Three of those high school guys probably have to go, right? And so some coaches have chosen to take that route. And there's going to be a lot of guys that if they do go to the 34 this fall, there's going to be a lot of guys who are on rosters right now that will not be on rosters. Right. And the, the other kind of elephant in the room with this is that there's 40 man rosters, but go and look at some of the rosters online. There's some big schools that are, they're listing 50 guys on their rosters online and it's because they've got a bunch of non scholarship redshirt guys that are, you know, they don't count against your roster, but they're there practicing, they're there getting better, they're there doing their thing. Well, those guys are going to have to go into the portal too, unless they're going to get kept on that roster. So there's, this is a significant impact no matter how you do it. Right. And I think you can make a strong argument that ripping the band aid off right now and moving on with it is a viable way to deal with it. I think that there's probably a lot of coaches who would prefer that, especially since there's been anticipation that this has been coming for quite some time now. And I think a lot of schools and a lot of programs have started to prepare themselves for this by either cutting down their recruiting class or, you know, telling some high school guys they don't have a spot. And coaches are obviously evaluating their rosters as they stand right now and starting to figure out what the, how the math is going to math when it's time to go into the transfer portal versus the guys that they're bringing in on campus. So I think there's been a lot of preparation and I think some coaches, I believe Kendall Rogers tweeted about this earlier that, you know, a lot of athletic directors and, and coaches in his circle, which is a big circle, have all kind of voiced their opinion like, hey, we just need to, we just need to get this over with and do it. I think there's an argument for that and I think there's an argument for tearing it. You know, maybe you go from 40 to 37 to 34 and you do it over two years or maybe to your point, maybe you make it a little bit slower and it happens over a full kind of recruiting cycle that, that four year window. But either way there's going to be some pain involved. There's no clean way to do this, which is unfortunate. Right. And I, I, you bring up a really good point that while we're focused on baseball, and I'm assuming that the vast majority of people who come and listen to us talk about this stuff are here to hear about baseball, this impacts way more than just baseball. And in a lot of cases there's a bigger impact on some of these other sports. And While obviously Division 1 athletics is wildly competitive and that's a part of the nature, and guys have been getting cut from their teams and players have been getting cut from their teams for the existence of college sports. I mean, it happened when we played. It was a lot. It wasn't nearly as clean. There wasn't as many options for players. You could argue that today's, in today's day with the transfer portal getting cut is way easier to handle than it was when we played. When you would just get run out of a program or have your scholarship revoked after the end of the year and get told like, hey, you're just not going to be able to cut it here. So I don't think there is a clean way to do it. I'm not surprised that that was something that came out of this conversation. I am a little bit surprised that that was something that she, that the judge presiding over the case made a point to tell these lawyers, like, hey, you need to go back and you need to rethink this. So obviously more to come. Very impactful conversation. I think the other thing too, from a pure baseball perspective is the roster limit is one part of the conversation. The big thing with baseball for years has been how many guys are being brought in in the fall. And we know that you make your 40 man roster decision, but a lot of schools are bringing 50, 60 guys on campus to compete all fall and then you get it down to 40. The big conversation was, well, if you're going to cap the rosters, we probably need to cap that. But that comes with its own set of issues. If you've got 34 as your roster limit and you say, hey, well you're allowed to bring 40 guys on campus, well, now you have to think about, all right, well, there's six guys who are going to get caught during the season. So now you have a complete mess of a transfer portal in December. You know, you got a lot of decisions to make. There's, there's no, there's no clean cut tried true way where everybody wins in this process. And unfortunately the student athlete in some way shape or form is going to suffer from this decision. At least in the short term. I think the long term ramifications of this are good, right? I think there's going to be a less BS in the recruiting process. I think you'll see the transfer portal, at least in baseball, I think you'll see it slow down. Not completely, but I do think that you're going to see it slow down. So I think the Long term impacts of this are good, but there's no short term outcome where everybody's happy.
• 15:25
  Speaker B: No, it's, I don't think we're gonna have, I think regardless of which way this goes, someone's going to be mad, right? Like, this is, we're not talking about small, simple changes. Like we're talking about more or less over overhauling NCAA Division 1 sports from a roster standpoint, from a money standpoint with NIL and what essentially amounts to a salary cap. What's going on with NIL collectives, all of that. You know, we've seen massive changes over the last couple of years because of nil and stuff. And I, you know, I, I don't think it's the worst thing in the world for college sports, but on the same time, you know, it's, we're putting parameters around what this has become, right? Like NIL has become something that it wasn't necessarily intended for and where they need to put some sort of parameters around this so that it can be more intended for what the rule and the law was. You know, so regardless of what it is with NIL money, with quote, unquote, salary caps, with, you know, roster limits, the, like, it's, you're not going to make everyone happy. But I do think that you can, you can be fair about what it is that you're doing to make sure that it's, it's as, even as it could possibly be at that level. And it's not going to be, it's. We've seen the disparity that's happened over the course of the last, you know, with the NIL money that's around. Like, you see the disparity now. Like, there is a disparity when we played, there is a disparity 10 years ago. Like, it's just gotten bigger at this point in time, right? Like, you know, Tennessee and Marist are competing for the same trophy and God, I love Marist, I bleed Marist baseball. But like, we don't have what Tony Vitello has at Tennessee. You know what I mean? Like, it's, it's completely, it's two completely different stratospheres of when you start talking about stuff like that. So, you know, I don't think it's the worst thing in the world. You know, not everyone's going to be happy about it. Not everyone loves change. But on the same hand, like, something needs to be done in order to make it a little bit more competitively balanced and, you know, maybe this is a start. Do I like, do. I think that this is going to be, like, set in stone and this is what we're going to be doing for the next five, ten years? No, like, they're, you know, maybe with the money part of it, but, you know, they're going to go back and probably, you know, try to adjust some of this stuff. It's. It's a starting point for what it is that they need to do in this new era of college sports. And it's from the outside looking in, it's at least nice that they're, they're trying to do something to rein in this and make it a little bit more competitive and that, you know, you and I were talking about this before we started. I thought it was interesting that, you know, one of the articles that I sent you that we were, we read was, you know, the judge had made a comment towards the end of the hearing that, you know, if people aren't going to abide by it, then, you know, the NCAA can just throw them out, which I think is something that could potentially happen with some of the power conferences. Like, if you're not going to abide by it, they're just going to kind of go do their own thing, which we've talked about before. It's. It's not out of the realm of possibilities. Do I think it's going to happen right away? No. Do I think it's something that could happen in the future? Absolutely, I do. Where you more or less have power fours and, you know, one double A and everything else, and that's what it could be. You know, kind of like the football model for, for pretty much all sports.
• 19:12
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, simply put, with the NL stuff, like, there's just teams operating on a different level. And I, I think even with caps and I don't know if it's going to create a competitive balance across Division 1 sports. Even though that's kind of the spirit of it, I, I think that that's a. It's never to your point. It's never been the same across all of Division 1. And, you know, that's just the nature of it. Right. You know, it's. That's really what it is. But yeah, a lot to come on this. The N stuff is certainly interesting in, in when they, they nail that down, specifically around the, the nil collectives and what types of rules and regulations that are going to be put around that. That'll be very interesting to see. But, you know, from a recruiting perspective, I think the, the ball that needs to drop is is coming to a determination on how these roster changes are going to be implemented, so we will report back. For those of you who who want to do some research on your own, I highly recommend following Ross Dellinger on Twitter. Shout Out Ross. We have no connection to Ross at all. I have no idea who he is, but he does a wonderful job of of posting about this and has written some really high quality articles that that dive pretty deep into it. I believe he was actually present at the hearing, so he' good source of information and breaks it down pretty well and makes it pretty digestible. So if you want to read up on it more and instead of hearing our our opinions, go check that out. But anything else you want to add on that? Coach Nope. All right, well, thank you for listening everybody. We'll report back when we get a little bit more clarification on this and we'll talk to you about this then. Thanks everybody. Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram MD Baseball. If you want to find out what me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.