As the result of the $2.8 billion settlement in the House versus NCAA anti-trust lawsuit, college athletics has changed forever.
While most of the focus has been on football, other sports are undergoing changes of their own.
Baseball has been no exception.
On one hand, there’s plenty to be excited about. After being limited to just 11.7 scholarships to spread amongst the entire team, programs are now able to offer full rides to as many as 34.
Unfortunately for coaches like Georgia’s Wes Johnson, that’s presented other challenges.
For example. The current 40-man roster limit that’s in effect for 2024-2025, falls to 34 for 2025-2026, and that’s forcing coaches to adjust the ways their teams recruit and build their teams.
“It's a pro model now,” Johnson said. “You look at it, you know, the way you scrimmage, the way you practice, the way you recruit.”
When you play in a conference as competitive as the SEC, you’d better make sure you’re getting the right pieces.
In Georgia’s case and others throughout the league, that meant a bigger focus on the transfer portal than ever before.
According to the statistical website 64Analytics.com, Georgia is one of four SEC teams to bring in at least 10 transfers to fortify their respective rosters.
The 16 new Bulldogs are the most of any SEC school, followed by Kentucky (15), LSU (12) and Arkansas (10).
“You go look, I mean, old teams in our league win. Those are just facts. I like freshmen. I want freshmen, but the facts are the older teams win,” Johnson said. “I think what you'll get back to, I think you'll see that age kind of come back to the younger side a little more when you're starting to look at a model or graphs or whatever you want to look at. I think it’ll come back just because the way some of the rules are with Covid, some of those players are going to be out of there.”
Other impacts will be felt.
With fewer numbers, coaches will need to be more certain than ever that the players they have fill their rosters with players ready to contribute sooner rather than later.
The days of taking chances on players – like Georgia once did with preferred walk-on Charlie Condon – could be history.
“As sad as it is, you can't wait on freshmen to get two or three years, for example, to get better and improve,” Johnson said. “The sad part of our game, for me, is the days of Charlie Condon are pretty much gone. You can't just bring a kid in and redshirt him and hope he gets better, and then he blossoms into the third overall pick and wins every major award in college baseball. You don't have the flexibility to do that.”
Even Georgia’s roster remains in flux.
According to the online roster on Georgiadogs.com, the Bulldogs still have 46 players. That number has to be down to 40 by Feb. 10.
Of the 46, only six are true freshmen.
“Your goal is that you eventually get to that point, right, where you've got these three classes of where you've got 10 in each class,” Johnson said. “Hopefully, it’s where you’ve got a good freshman class, you've got a good sophomore class and maybe you’re taking a chance on one or two kids. But I don't think anybody's roster is there now” Johnson said. “I think it'll take two to three years for that to happen.”
