Billy Napier addresses 'transformational' roster limitations, 'difficult' challenge of meeting 105 limit

With the presumed adoption of the terms of the House v. NCAA lawsuit settlement set to hit college sports in 2025, college football coaches are bracing for new roster limits. But Florida head coach Billy Napier has plenty of questions, and not a lot of answers, as the new way of doing things approaches.

For Napier, he wonders about the specific machinations of getting under the 105-player limit. He’s currently got 131 players on the roster at Florida and isn’t clear when he’d have to trim down his roster.

And that’s just one of the litany of questions that Napier has and still wants answered.

“I do think this transition to 105 players is going to be a very difficult one and I think that, in my opinion, there’s going to be a ton of things that need to be defined,” Napier said on the SEC coaches teleconference on Wednesday. “I think, for example, we have 131 players and we’ve gotta get to 105, you’re looking at 26 players, potentially — if you don’t have any seniors, and obviously we have some seniors — that’s 26 guys that aren’t playing college football at Florida that have had a once-in-a-lifetime experience and are a huge part of our team. So I think that there — and look, every part of the offseason is different. What does that look like in the spring? What does that look like in the summer? What does that look like in training camp and during the fall?

“So, I think that there needs to be some clarity about how that process is going to take place, when does it take place and then are players replaceable? Do you have a waiting list? There are a number of things here. Can they participate in rev share? There’s going to be a lot of strategy and if we don’t button it up, there will be loopholes and it will be manipulated. So I think it’s going to be transformational for college football. Your practice format, the development of players. I think it’s a big deal. I think it’s a huge deal and I think that we’ll see that over the next couple of years. There will be quite a bit of adjustment.”

And Napier continued, pointing out he’s not clear on when the roster cut downs would be during the year, and that there could possibly be a time where there’s more than 105 players in the program.

He added that until he’s told to, he’s going to keep his roster as-is.

“We’re going to keep as many players as we can until they tell us we’ve gotta be at 105,” Napier said. “We don’t know the answers to those questions. That’s what we need clarity on. Like when do we actually have to be at 105? Is that first day of school in January? Is that summer school? Is that training camp? Is that the first day of school? And are you going to be keeping over? Are you going to be training 135 guys and cut 30 of them on the first day of class? What exactly are we looking at here? So I think all that needs to be defined and I think that you’re on to something there. I think it’s a significant story and it’s a great question.”