My dream of scholarship reductions to 70 or 75 may come true. I doubt it but maybe. Football teams absolutely do not need 85 players on scholarship. Plus now teams have their own in-house FCS team of 20-50 "preferred walk-ons." Its excessive and unnecessary. D1 college football teams can manage a season with 70-75 players. Heck, even with 85, many lose games vs FCS teams as it is and they only have 63 on scholarship. There is way too much stacking talent at the top of college football and as a Pitt fan and fan of the sport, I'd prefer to see those players dispersed among more schools instead of riding the bench most of their careers at like 10 schools.
1 positive if programs cut back
- Thread starter Sean Miller Fan
- Start date
Here is a more intriguing positive
Social distancing at CFB games greatly decreases Pitt's disadvantages. There would be no recognizable difference between Pitt games and likely anywhere else.
And here is an even more exciting positive from all this:
HF becomes a perfectly fine venue to build a winning program, and all of the whining about an OCS, led mostly by you, evaporates.
Social distancing at CFB games greatly decreases Pitt's disadvantages. There would be no recognizable difference between Pitt games and likely anywhere else.
And here is an even more exciting positive from all this:
HF becomes a perfectly fine venue to build a winning program, and all of the whining about an OCS, led mostly by you, evaporates.
Yea I posted that last week or the week before. However, this decrease in fan attendance only lasts 2 season tops and probably just 1 season. Unless.....it is determined that a vaccine is only like 60% effective or whatever, then maybe we social distance at sporting events forever but that seems pretty unlikely
@mustremindeveryonehowsmartiam
i've been saying this for years. WAY too many scholarship players. joepa hate the idea so you know it's good.
you could easily do this with 60 or 65. the NFL does.
For years I thought the limit should be 75 with the redshirt rule abolished. Give kids five years to play five.
One big difference though is that if someone gets hurt on an NFL team they can go out and sign a replacement. Between the regular roster, the practice squad and guys on injured reserve the Stillers had 73 players on contract at the end of last season.
Can you imagine the recruiting success will be had because other programs can’t criticize Pitt for playing before a sparse crowd.
You can't very well do exactly what the NFL does because many/most 17+ to 19+ year olds (skill position guys often excepted) are not physically developed enough to compete with 20+ to 23+ year old men who have been living in the weight room for 3-4 years.
That being said, you could probably cut back the BCS numbers to roughly FCS level numbers. Say, going to a 65/20 rule to replace the current 85/25 rule. FWIW, it would also make Title IX compliance easier.
On the down side, a considerable number of high school football players would lose their opportunity for a FB ship to college.
I don't know FCS can get through a season with only 63 players.
They should eliminate scholarship limits period. Just go to per year hard new scholarship limit. I say let schools add 20 scholarship players per year. If all 20 stay 5 years then you have 100 guys on scholarship. It eliminates running off guys because there is no need to open spots. It slows down the transfers because coaches now have to decide if they want to waste one of 20 spots on a transfer that they may only have 2 years of or a freshmen they get 5 years out of.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
If you cut scholarships, the blue bloods will find another way to get kids to school for free. It makes recruiting at Pitt even harder.
Quit trying to cook up schemes to lower the bar.
Quit trying to cook up schemes to lower the bar.
Why cant they do that now at 85 scholarships? Reducing scholarships will make college football more competitive. There is simply no arguing that. Sure, some kids will take PWO spots at blue bloods over scholarships at Pitt but those would be few and far between
Why can’t that 85 be knocked back to 80 or 78. 5-7 scholarships a year is a boat load of money saved. What about college hoops. Eliminate one scholarship for both men’s and women’s teams. Save some money. That last scholarship doesn’t make or break a team.
If it came to a vote, I dont see how any more than 10-15 programs would vote to keep it at 85. You just don't need that many kids on scholarships. You shouldn't have the luxury of redshirting 20 players every year. I mean these schools are paying to educate, feed, and house most of these kids for 5 years and some never see the field.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
They do. But they don't need to do it as often.
If Pitt is cut back to 65 scholarships, the school probably invests less in the program. Recruiting budget gets cut. Staff salaries probably go down. So it would actually make college football less competitive because there are more Pitt's than there are Clemson's and Bama's who wouldn't likely change much of what they're doing.
Seriously, this argument is stupid even for you. There is no way college football is cutting scholarships so it's a waste of effort to fantasize about ways to lower the bar.
Let's look at this from a practical point of view.
Another smart poster, I forget the name pointed this out and maybe you didn't notice.
Let's say a college team starts with 65 players.
As is the case, some number of players do poorly academically (3), others (4) have discipline issues, a few leave for personal reasons (2) and others are injured (8).
This is a normal distribution of a normal colleege football year for most programs.
The 65 is now 53.
Players on the roster not officially injured but not 100% are xx .
Guess what college programs can't call players up from the practice squad or add players so the coaches would be working with a barely ready for prime time team
I said 70-75. You need roughly 45 players to play a game, probably less. You also have walk-ons.
Let be honest. Even if they cut scholarships by 20 there is very little in true savings. Most of it would be on paper because for most schools it becomes a wash. For example the athletic department budget is supplemented by the university. So if they cut 20 scholarships the athletic department now doesn’t have to write a check for those. However the university would reduce their supplement by the same amount. There would be little true saving in that case.
If schools really want to save money they will start eliminating sports. Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if they cancelled or delayed the start of lacrosse at Pitt. I also could see them eliminating something like gymnastics. I am also sure the swimming and diving teams along with wrestling are nervous.
If schools really want to save money they will start eliminating sports. Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if they cancelled or delayed the start of lacrosse at Pitt. I also could see them eliminating something like gymnastics. I am also sure the swimming and diving teams along with wrestling are nervous.
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