Elliott among the FBS coaches not happy at the new proposed football roster limit

UVA Football coach Tony Elliott, like other coaches in FBS, is monitoring the new roster limits that are being discussed.

“My only concern is player safety, right, player safety, from a numbers standpoint, to make sure that we have the adequate numbers to be able to practice safely, play safely, so that the student-athletes, you know, are able to perform and not, you know, endure more exposure, so to speak,” Elliott told reporters during his media day press conference last week.

The NCAA is discussing setting the football roster limit at 105. The issue for many FBS coaches is that you see a lot of them carrying closer to the current 120-player limit on their rosters.

---

College football

• New NCAA scholarship limits will allow the big boys to stockpile players again
• NCAA set to increase roster, scholarship limits for football, baseball

---

The tradeoff for coaches would be an increase in the number of available scholarships at the FBS level from the current 85 to the proposed 105 number.

The flip side there is the reduced overall number, which some coaches are insisting will make it harder to practice.

The adjustment shouldn’t be that difficult, in the end. The two-deep should go about 50 deep into the roster, so even with attrition from injuries, seriously, 105 isn’t enough?

“I’m still waiting to see, you know, what the actual number is, and trusting that the leadership is going to give us the best opportunity to be successful all the way around, and that’s not just, you know, on the scoreboard, because we were talking about, you know, young people and their bodies, you know, and their livelihood, their long-term, you know, livelihood. That’s one thing that I think gets lost at times,” Elliott said.

“We all choose to play the game, those who play football choose to play the game. But, man, you put your body through a lot, and I want to make sure that we keep that in perspective as we adapt to the changes in the model,” Elliott said.

Maybe the bigger issue here is, colleges shouldn’t be in the game of playing a sport that’s this dangerous from a health perspective.

We’ll fight that one some other time.