A few weeks ago, the NCAA brought change to the college sports landscape at their Division I Cabinet meeting when they adopted the 5-in-5 rule, the age-based eligibility model that allows student-athletes up to five years of eligibility over five years if they enroll in college no later than the academic year after their 19th birthday.
It’s a sweeping change that will go into effect immediately and alter the fabric of what we’ve always known college sports to be. But how will it play a role for Gary
Gait, Regy Thorpe, and the future of collegiate lacrosse rosters?
The short answer is that we don’t know at this point. There’s so many variables at play as a major rule change will have coaches and administrators adjusting on the go. A lot of it will be figured out in real time, so for the moment all we have is the speculation about how it might go down.
One of the biggest questions is how the 5-in-5 will square with last summer’s House settlement on roster caps, which was 48 players for a men’s lacrosse roster and 38 for women’s, assuming a school opted in to the settlement.
The issue here is really one of math. Last year, the men’s lacrosse team had 48 spots for four classes of student-athletes. Now, they’ll have 48 for five classes, shrinking the players per class as roster maneuvering will become more complex for coaches and players alike. Could further changes be coming, perhaps to the roster caps now that the eligibility timeline has grown? It’s certainly possible, but if the above numbers remain the same, there will be adjustments for the current roster and even for high school commits from the upcoming classes.
With 5-in-5 going in place immediately for all current players, it effectively acts in the same way the post-COVID extra year of eligibility did in 2021, which obviously had ripple effects for a few years subsequent, as well.
This is where the immediate implementation becomes an issue for coaching staffs, because you’ve already signed your Class of 2027 players who will join next fall, but now you’ve got the current seniors eligible for another year thanks to the new rule. It’s going to create a potential log-jam roster situation that could result in coaches having to tell certain players that there simply won’t be room for them given these new parameters. Add on top of all that the Class of 2028, who will begin signing in September, and you’re likely going to have a real mess to sort out for meeting roster requirements both in the present and the next handful of years.
And that’s just the matter of figuring out the number of players on the roster. It becomes potentially an even bigger mess when you start to consider how exactly to divvy up the scholarship funds for next season when the money that was previously being shared across four classes is now being done with five. Is there any chance for a one-year reprieve to exceed the current budget limit like they did in 2021 post-COVID? If not, there’s going to be some pretty significant money management required. At the moment, that remains another unanswered question.
With schools soon to be housing five classes at a time, it’s really going to test the patience of younger players looking to make an impact on the field. Underclassmen will now be further down the totem pole of seniority than ever before. For the majority of players, the extra year will likely mean an extra year of patience to work your way up the ranks of the roster.
Communication is going to be a massive key as everyone tries to navigate the new reality and experience it for the first time all together. Players and parents will want to know where and how they fit into the roster plans from year to year, especially in the early stages as the current college seniors and high school seniors bump up against each other next year.
There’s also the consideration of the differences for schools and conferences across the landscape, most particularly the Ivy League and the Patriot League. The Ivy does not allow graduate students to participate in athletics, with some schools adhering to a strict policy of eight semesters and out, and some offering more lenient rules that allow players to withdraw for a semester in order to preserve their eligibility for a fifth year. Those policies could be in for a review from some of the stricter schools now that five years will be the new norm.
In the Patriot, they do allow their graduate students to play, but their members have never been allowed to accept grad transfers from other schools. That could also be up for review in light of 5-in-5, because the Ivy and Patriot will be at a real disadvantage if they keep their policies given how much fifth-year players and graduate students will now factor into the college game. That obviously could be good news for the big schools outside those conferences who could eventually poach their players (a la Sammy English and Jake Stevens from Princeton in recent years), but that’s why it’ll require a serious re-think on their parts.
This rule could now even impact the pursuit of players academic degrees. At a time when colleges are creating three-year pathways to graduation due to the immense cost of an undergraduate degree, 5-in-5 goes the other direction. If a student-athlete finishes their degree in three or four years, what will they do to remain eligible for their fifth year? They could pursue a graduate degree in their field, although that may require them to transfer if their current school doesn’t have the exact program they desire.
It all adds up to another NCAA mess created by making a quick change and implementing it right away with no chance for anyone to adjust before it becomes law.
One of the early indicators of its impact may come in the fall when schools start signing players from the Class of 2028. It’s going to be a tough thing to figure when teams really have no clue how their rosters will look in two years when those players show up on campus. It’ll be interesting to see if schools are more tentative to sign as many players as normal, and if there’ll be any movement from the Class of 2027 as they’ll be the first incoming freshman to deal with 5-in-5.
It’s going to be a very open and fluid situation for the time being, and everyone directly involved in the process is going to need to be understanding that it’s all new for everybody. There’s going to be an adjustment period, probably a lot of mistakes and miscalculations made, and hopefully as much open communication as possible to make it as smooth as possible.
The NCAA wheel keeps on spinning.
