
Judge Wilken to Attorneys, "Phase In Roster Limits" and Satisfy Walkons or No Settlement
United States Judge for the Northern District of California, Claudi Wilken, who has been hearing the settlement from the attorneys in the House vs. NCAA class-action lawsuit, issued an order on Wednesday, April 23 that will please all walkon athletes. Just over two weeks ago in a hearing Judge Wilken heard from parties that had issues with the settlement of the multiple lawsuits insisting that college athletes deserved a piece of the financial pie that schools and conferences, Power Five in particular, have kept for themselves. One of the groups with a disagreement were walkon athletes, their parents, and representatives. Their issue was the new roster limits that the NCAA came up with to limit total athletes they would have to scholarship, pay for, and in some cases, pay revenue sharing (salaries) to. The judge found relevence in their fight.

She told the attorneys, primarily the attorneys for the plaintiff (NCAA) that they had 14 days to come back with a plan to phase or grandfather in roster limits - that was a central part of the projected final approval of the settlement. The hearing for that began earlier this month on April 7.
“The Court finds that the decision by Defendants and NCAA member schools to begin implementing the roster limits before the Court granted final approval of the settlement agreement is not a valid reason for approval of the agreement in its current form despite the harm discussed above,” Wilken wrote. “Any disruption that may occur is a problem of Defendants’ and NCAA members schools’ own making. The fact that the Court granted preliminary approval of the settlement agreement should not have been interpreted as an indication that it was certain that the Court would grant final approval.”
NCAA roster limits that were establised as part of the settlement proposed include football (105), men’s and women’s basketball (15), baseball (34), women’s soccer (28), softball (25) and volleyball (18) wrestling (30). Basically, the judge is saying power to the walkons.

Oklahoma State football has already started the process this week of pairing down the roster to 105. Mike Gundy and his staff have started telling players to go into the NCAA Transfer Portal and Gundy and Oklahoma State did this to give their players a chance to find new homes. There are a lot of schools that are going to wait until the summer or fall camp and that will leave these players with little or no option.
Oklahoma State would have the option now of bringing walkon players back if the NCAA will agree to grandfather them into the rosters until their eligibility is exhausted. Unfortunately, if that is the case Oklahoma State may have lost a lot of their walkon for better opportunities. Mike Gundy told me he is okay with that. What they did by being honest and letting those athletes know their situation gave them a chance for that very result.