Ohio State Planning On Having 90 Scholarship Players For 2025 Season 

As details surrounding the likely approval of the groundbreaking House V. NCAA antitrust case remains unclear, Ohio State head coach Ryan Day said on Tuesday that he is preparing to have 90 scholarship players for the 2025 season, leaving the door open for at least 15 walk-ons to be on the team. 

“We’re looking at increasing it to 90 (scholarships),” Day said. “That’s what the conversations have been. It’s difficult when you think it’s going to be 105 (total roster spots) and now they’re saying maybe it won’t go to 105, but if it does we better make sure we can pivot quickly.”

As Day alluded to, college football coaches have been preparing for roster and scholarship limits to be altered due to the House V. NCAA settlement. It is likely that there will be a 105-player limit, 15 fewer than the previous cap of 120, but after Judge Claudia Wilken said last week that she would not approve a settlement that immediately implemented roster limits resulting in student-athletes being cut, that change might no longer go into effect this season. 

This could create some murkiness for walk-ons, as if the roster limit of 105 is enacted — unlike Wison is hoping for — it would result in non-scholarship players having to be cut. That potential reality may have propelled walk-ons such as running back TC Caffey, wide receiver Reis Stocksdale and punter Anthony Vennner to enter the transfer portal this spring. 

Day said on Tuesday that he tried to be as transparent as possible with the players who are on the “fence” during this transfer portal window, having conversations with them about their place on the roster so that they could transfer if they wanted to. 

“If the 105 cap isn’t put into play, we’ll operate around 120-121 like we’ve been, so those are kind of the parameters we’ve been working with right now, knowing we might have to pivot quickly, which is tough for a lot of those guys who are on the fence,” Day said. “So that’s why we wanted to make sure that we were transparent. But this is kind of the way it is in college football right now. You have to be able to adapt quickly and move on the run. The easy thing to do is throw up your hands and get frustrated, but we’ll just adapt and try to communicate well and make sure we have everything we need.” 

Ohio State did not lose a single scholarship player to the transfer portal this spring, which leaves them at 88 scholarship players entering the longest part of the offseason. If Day and his staff are committed to having 90 scholarship players, two more transfers could be making their way to Columbus before fall camp begins this August. Those additions would likely be on the defensive and/or offensive line, two positions that have already been addressed this spring with the additions of former UNC edge rusher Beau Atkinson and former West Virginia offensive tackle Justin Terry. 

While there are two open spots for the taking, Day said that they don’t want to simply add a player or two just for the sake of increasing to 90 scholarship players. Rather, any roster additions would be made based strictly on how they would help the team achieve their goals this season. 

“When we bring somebody in, it has to be an upgrade to what we have. We’re not just going to do it to do it,” Day said. “I think that we have looked and we’re going to continue to look, but we’re not just going to bring in someone just to do that, and so we’ll continue to evaluate that.”