Talk about your Friday night news dump. Late Friday evening, the college sports world changed forever, and unfortunately, there were plenty of impacts on the Nebraksa football program and the Nebraska Cornhuskers athletic department in particular that had huge negative connotations.
Judge Claudia Wilken signed off on the House vs NCAA settlement, putting a swatch of new rules on major college sports. Most of those will have some positive effects. Still, it’s important to note that an awful lot of the ruling benefits the NCAA and administrators as they once again limit athletes, especially the methods and amounts they can be paid.
For Nebraska football, especially, the House vs NCAA settlement means that the walk-on program is over as we’ve known it for decades. While the Huskers will still have walk-ons, Matt Rhule and company won’t be able to take as many as they want. Let’s dive deep into every bit of what this massive change means, especially since it’s happening faster than most might have expected.
Roster limits will change how Nebraska football above others does business
There are now roster limits for every sport. The one that’s been reported the most is the 105-man roster for football, but men’s and women’s basketball now have a 15-person cap, baseball is capped at 34, men’s and women’s soccer allows for 28 players, softball is set to 25, and volleyball has 18 players.
The key here, for Nebraska football, for example, is that the athletic department can offer 105 scholarships. Or it can offer 85 scholarships and then have 20 walk-ons. It’s expected that’s how most programs will work.
The same approach will likely apply to the other sports. Husker baseball can offer 34 scholarships over the current, much smaller limit. Still, it almost certainly won’t go that high, mainly because every university also has new costs, both in paying its share of the $2.7 billion House Settlement and with the arrival of the new revenue sharing era.
There is one important caveat here. Judge Wilken forced the NCAA to insert “grandfather clause language into the agreement. That language was meant to protect any player who joined the programs this year and then had to leave or was kicked off because of the roster limits.
Essentially, anyone who wants to stay at Nebraska or elsewhere will be able to do so and not affect the 105-man roster until the natural end of their college career. It will be interesting to see if any guys who left this spring decide to come back. It seems unlikely, but not impossible.
It also means that, for now, the Cornhuskers and others don’t need to get down to 105. Considering NU is currently sitting at an official roster of 129, that’s good news for the guys currently on the team. This massive change won’t take effect in totality for a couple more seasons, though that also complicates things, as coaches and newly minted general managers will need to keep track of where they’ll sit when a player leaves and how many guys they can take in each season.
How will revenue sharing work at Nebraska and other programs?
Revenue sharing will be carried out similarly to how salary caps work in professional leagues. Every year, revenue numbers from the power conferences will be plugged into a formula, and then a rev share cap will be spit out the other end.
For the 2025-2026 season, the cap is expected to be around $20.5 million per school. That’s the entirety of the pool for all sports. It will then be up to people like Troy Dannen to decide how to split that pie up among football, baseball, basketball, volleyball, etc.
It’s thought that most major programs, like Nebraska football, will receive between $13 and $16 million, and the other sports will share the rest.
How this gets split is incredibly important because while NIL will still exist, it's about to undergo a major shift in how it works. The Wild West, at least for now, is gone.
NIL Go changes the pay-for-play landscape
Schools paying players through NIL money directly is officially over. A new clearinghouse called NIL Go will officially be born next week (they announced the man who will oversee it just an hour after the settlement became law in former MLB exec Bryan Seeley). It will have sole authority over what NIL deals can be made when it goes into effect.
Chief among the new rules is that pay-for-play is gone. When a new NIL deal is signed, it must be between the athletes and a third party (not anyone affiliated with the schools).
The agreement must also involve deals that involve services rendered. And the payment must be a “reasonable amount” for an endorsement—no more $1 million paydays for an Instagram post.
NIL Go must approve any NIL deal that pays more than $600. There will be a process where the deal will either be approved, denied, or need more review. If the agreement is rejected, athletes can try to make a new one or appeal for arbitration.
This process is laid out to make it very hard for Nebraska athletes and others to get any deal they want and work around the rules. Expect lawsuits aplenty once players start getting their NIL deals denied.
Important dates for Nebraska fans to know
So, when does all this go into effect? We’re used to thinking we have at least a few months to get a feel for massive new changes to how college athletics work. That’s not the case here. This all begins next week.
- June 11: NIL Go opens its doors and becomes the law of the land.
- June 15: Schools not directly involved in the settlement (Group of 5 FBS schools) must officially opt in to the deal and essentially remain part of FBS.
- July 1: Revenue sharing payments from the school to the athletes begin.
- July 6: Schools using the grandfather clause to exceed the roster limits must officially designate which players qualify.
- Start of school year: All teams must be down to their roster limits (outside of grandfathered players) by “the start of competition.” This means August 28 for Nebraska football.
- December 1: Winter sports (basketball, volleyball) must also reach their roster limits by the start of competition or December 1, whichever comes first.
The House vs NCAA settlement is a significant shift for college sports. If you thought NIL and the transfer portal were a new era, you ain’t seen nothing yet. That Nebraska football, the rest of the Cornhuskers sports, and the rest of the sporting world have to adapt and change most of this stuff in a matter of weeks is only going to make it more complex.