College football roster management is about to get even more challenging as the offseason progresses, particularly with the spring transfer portal window opening April 16 and the NCAA implementing its new 105-man roster limits. Kansas State coach Chris Klieman called the new reality a “disaster” and voiced immense frustration over the sport’s decision-making process, which largely keeps coaches out of the loop.
“I still think the industry of college athletics is a disaster. It just is,” Klieman said. “We gotta remove a lot of kids from the program, and it sucks. I’ll be honest with you. There’s a lot of kids that want to be here, want to stay here, that we can’t have in the program. Kids that are paying their way. Kids that have put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this place. Kids that are invested academically. Now those kids gotta make a choice. It’s frustrating to me, because I don’t understand why the number came of 105.”
The looming roster limits are part of the seismic changes set to come as part of the House v. NCAA settlement, and while they raise the number of scholarships available to programs from 85 to 105, most schools will dramatically limit their volume of walk-ons and see an overall decrease in the number of available players in their locker rooms.
Most Power Four programs operate in the offseason with spring and fall camp rosters in excess of 120 or 130 players. The NCAA, until the 2025 season, required cuts down to the maximum in-season roster size of 120.
“I don’t even know who decided it, but as a lot of us coaches talk about it, we’re not in those meetings,” Klieman said. “We’re not in the rooms. The practitioners, the guys that have their boots on the ground every day, aren’t in the meetings that decide some of these things. I’m sure it happens in other sports, as well, but in football in particular.”
The transfer portal, which already teems with players each offseason, could soon see a major surge in entrants as programs trim their rosters. Fewer available spots, though, means that many of those transfers could struggle to find landing spots. This year’s spring window is shorter than in previous offseasons and runs just 10 days from April 16 through April 25, and it may be even more hectic than usual.
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“The negative, which you guys all know and can assume, is our best players are getting contacted every day right now,” Klieman said of the transfer portal. “It may be not them in particular, but it’s going to be their agent saying, ‘Hey, we’re looking for this position’ … or ‘We have some excess money we’ve gotta dump; let’s go get this kid.’ This month of April is going to be craziness.”
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