In three days of the NCAA transfer portal being open for women’s swimming, the rush of names in hasn’t been as high as expected.
This is one of a few themes that have been on the chatter-wheel this week regarding the House settlement and roster impacts.
If you’re not an insider, here’s what coaches are saying to us:
Not that many women have entered the portal
Many coaches are saying that they are unsurprised by the fact that relatively-few women have entered the portal so far. One Power 5 coach said they expected about half of the swimmers they cut to go into the portal.
Multiple coaches have said that they are expecting another wave to go in post-NCAAs, which is normal, but might be bigger this year and include swimmers who have already been cut. One coach described this as them not wanting to distract their teams, though it would put them a couple of weeks behind in the new-look transfer cycle which will feel more like a recruiting cycle than maybe past transfer cycles have.
One point that has been brought up a few times to me is that many of the swimmers who were cut are in a situation where their progression in college has been limited, which is probably part of the reason why they were cut. If a swimmer hasn’t seen a progression in college swimming, they might be more primed to exit-right and just carry forward as a non-athlete student, explaining why many haven’t entered the portal.
Since March 11, 169 women have entered the portal.
Men Already Reaching Out
While the men’s portal doesn’t open until next Wednesday (a week after NCAA invites have announced), male swimmers who were cut have already begun reaching out to programs and asking coaches and other programs to ‘keep an eye out’ for them in the portal. For comparison, 123 women entered the portal in March 2023. So it’s more, it’s just not a deluge.
Another Wave of Cuts Might Be Coming
Multiple Power 4 programs have told athletes to expect more cuts in the fall of next year. These cuts could be in different forms – either a full release from the team, or some kind of a pseudo junior varsity/high performance club situation as was outlined here.
SwimSwam has heard from high school coaches that this high performance center idea is being talked about in recruiting, so there seems to be real momentum behind it.
The unintended consequence of this “cut in the fall” could be…
A Much Later Start to the 2025-2026 Season
Multiple programs have said that their current guidance is that they can sort of carry as many swimmers as they want and then just have to declare their 30 or 22 or whatever their number is before their first meet.
The unintended consequence of this is that teams are planning to push the start of their competitive varsity season back until November so that they can gather as much information as possible before having to make those decisions.
I think a more compact varsity season could be a good thing, and while in the short-term it might further undermine the importance of the “dual meet,” in the long run I think could lead to a more coherent and digestible collegiate swimming season.
Coaches Are Willing to Give Grace, But Are Asking For It Too
Several coaches have discussed with SwimSwam the way that this scenario is a double-edged sword.
Athletes are feeling the pressure and almost a degree of shame for entering the portal or being cut, relying on the old context for those things. But as one SwimSwam commenter put it, coaches aren’t viewing this as a “scarlet letter” and don’t think that anybody else should either, because they fully understand the nature of what’s happening and are willing to accept the nature of the circumstances.
By the same token, coaches have told SwimSwam that they’re hoping for more grace and understanding from the athletes as well, because the roster cuts (and more specifically the hurried nature of them having to be shrunk before next season) wasn’t necessarily their choice.
The world is evolving, and the paradigms will have to shift.
SwimSwam has heard from coaches and athletes (and athletes’ parents) on this topic – as outlined partially in this article. And the theme seems to be that everyone is afraid that the other side won’t understand why they did what they did.
One Program Cutting Way Back
One Power 4 program that is not in the SEC is rumored to have been told by their athletics department to reduce the roster to 15 men and 24 women.
It’s unclear if that is a hard cap or a soft target like we saw Virginia set for themselves internally, but it seems that a growing number of schools are going below the House-defined roster limits as they try and cope with their new financial realities, which again will further distance the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ from what we already see in college swimming.
The Expectations are Shifting, the Bar Is Lifting
And finally, with more compact rosters come deeper decisions from coaches. A 52-second butterflier in the transfer portal previously would have been contacted by just about every major program. Whereas previously the resource that was being managed was “scholarships,” now coaches are managing scholarships, AND roster spots, AND NIL money.
Recruiting got a lot more complex, so previous “no duh” recruitments will now include longer conversations about “do we really need a butterflier there, or should we hold out for a breaststroker?”
This will shift recruiting and make it more similar, in some ways, to other NCAA team sports. Not that this thinking was totally devoid in previous recruiting cycles, but now it’s going to really be accentuated.
One former Power 5 coach told me that their AD once told them to run an ad in the newspaper to find more swimmers to expand their roster and hit some Title IX balancing number. Those days seem long gone now.
Someone very close to the Auburn program I know told me they only have 9 men left…brutal.
How many recruits are coming in???
For the Auburn men, it looks like they currently have 6 – 7 incomers. And for the Auburn women, it looks like they currently have 8 incomers.
If the Auburn men truly only have 9 men left, that is indeed “brutal” as they were slated to have up to 33 returners next year from this year’s roster. That would mean that there are up to 24 men that were cut or opted to leave the program on their own terms.
My son has made the roster (current freshman) for next year at an SEC school. Here’s questions I still want answered.
1. What happens if he gets injured? Can they cut him if they think he’ll take too long to heal?
2. Should he be negotiating a 3-year deal or is this going to be a year to year thing always wondering if you’ll make it.
3. What about red-shirting? How does the 4 in 5 rule apply. If a swimmer red-shirts does a coach have to accept that and are they still considered part of your roster of 22.
1. Yes, but this has always been the case.
2. Different schools and conferences will have different rules about multi-year deals, and I don’t know if anybody knows what those rules will be yet.
3. No, only the swimmers eligible to compete in meets count toward roster limits, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a coach will keep a swimmer on the team just because they’re redshirting. The overall theme is that you can’t assume that every team will carry its roster cap every year. Seems to be that coaches have to set their 22 for the first meet of the year.
Do you think the NCAA will go to 5 years of eligibility in 5 years?
There’s always chatter, but NCAA seemed to pretty definitively set that aside, for now.
A swim team limiting their roster to 15 men when the conference/NCAAs champs cap is 18 is like a basketball team only putting 4 players on the court
At that point they’re basically saying “this is an individual sport and we are not concerned about team finish.”
I don’t even get how a roster of 22 will work. There’s always a few who are out for injury or sickness.
They will still occupy a roster spot, and will be one of 22 (or whatever) or they will be off the team.
There is no legitimacy in the concept of roster cuts to current athletes. Phase in the roster caps and honor the commitments you’ve made to those on the team. Alternatively, just increase the number of full scholarships to the roster cap number but allow teams to carry non scholarship athletes just like now. Why couldn’t the House settlement just be simply an increase in scholarships numbers without roster limits?
We’re way past that. I too was astonished they didn’t phase this in. But, teams opting in are actively cutting. Each team has a $ budget and can now distribute scholarships how they want… some remaining athletes are getting full rides, especially at schools with good ADs that value olympic sports and have $. Everyone is still in shock over the loss of this suit, and it’s hard to feel sorry for those remaining on a team, but i do know there is survivors remorse going on right now. It’s awful to see your teammates hanging up their goggles in this way.
I think the idea of roster limits is to reward the best programs with NIL/$ above and beyond… Read more »
Survivor guilt is real.
That’s BS if coaches are thinking about starting meets later to avoid tough roster decisions. They need to commit to a roster prior to school starting so students can make decisions.
If you’re cut in October, you’re stuck there through the semester. Can you even train outside of a local club program?
I hope coaches who play that game quickly gain a reputation that they’re not to be trusted.
Be kind to people and you’ll likely see dividends.
I got the impression that the coaches doing that are the ones who are establishing club teams for the swimmers who don’t make roster. I think this is a good plan so long as it is transparent. If incoming freshmen know they will essentially be in a tryout for the first few months, then there’s nothing wrong with it. Like Rudy knowing he’s on the practice squad and trying to make the team.
It’s absolute crap that the coach can bring in an athlete in the fall and then cut them right before the first meet….after that swimmer has paid tuition and signed a rental lease. The coaches ask for grace and understanding but they hold the cards and all the uncertainty lies with the athlete. The university athletic department needs to have their plan ready now and have that plan communicated with the athlete. I haven’t heard of a lot of schools that have said “we will have 22 spots and all 22 will have a scholarship “. Most athletes are still in the dark so understanding level is low.
If an athlete is cut in October (Really poor thing to do) what are their options to get to another school? Do they have to wait for the portal to open again or are they able to contact other coaches to transfer at semester?
Athletes need to know that if they are cut, most athletic departments will honor their athletic aid until they graduate, unless… they enter the portal and then the school can start the process of taking away athletic aid.
With this many cuts, if athletes hold their ground and just stay to be students, it might put a financial strain on different teams in the athletic department. If a group of cut athletes band together and all decide to stay out of the portal their team might not have the money available to fill their spots. Coaches could then comeback and offer their spots back.
Just a thought!
It’s going to be very difficult for coaches to recruit long term after earning a terrible reputation because they carry athletes into the fall and then cut. They can be forgiven for the cuts this year, but no parent will send their kid to a program where they will be rolling the dice on whether or not they will be able to finish their education. At the end of the day, an 18-year-old and his/her family will want some measure of certainty before committing to a program. The coaches who can provide that will win out.
It depends on the program.
Texas can do whatever they want and if they offer kids a full ride, $100k, and the chance to pursue their Olympic dream, the kids are still going to come.
Braden, fyi there is a typo in the published article where you share how many women have entered the portal since March 11th. Really appreciate your insights and the excellent coverage SwimSwam is providing of this difficult situation around roster cuts and the transfer portal!
It’s still about relationships and trust between the coach and the athlete. I hear this all the time in football recruiting, which has 1000x more coverage. I don’t care if you’re Texas or Cal or UVA, the coaches still need to develop relationships and earn trust. Transactional relationships may work in the short-term, but they eventually fail.
You’re not wrong.
My swimmer could probably go somewhere amd get more money but they’re staying because of the relationship and trust they’ve built with their current coaching staff.
With the abundance of talent currently at Texas, the UT coaching staff allegedly has been doing “whatever they want[ed].” It seems that UT chose to go the route of having waves of cuts during the ‘24-‘25 season, which started right after winter break. Following the “competition portion” of a duel meet, the wave of swimmers on the chopping block would each get a “final chance” swim in an exhibition heat—with very few swimmers competing against them. If the swimmer swam “fast enough,” they “lived to see another swim” on UT. If not, most were then cut and left to fend for themselves for the remainder of the season with no pool, coaches, or workouts provided for them. Tough times for… Read more »
Are you speaking to how things “allegedly” have been handled with the UT Men…Women…or both? Based on the transfer portal information shared by Springboard Creative on their Instagram (highly recommend those interested in a more quantitative look into the transfer portal to check it out), it doesn’t look like there have been any UT women that have entered the transfer portal at this point. And, I also get that not everyone that is cut will opt for the transfer portal…as well as not everyone in the portal ultimately ends up transferring.
The men.
The real question is, did Erik continue to maintain a distance of 2 feet or less from Bob throughout these heats? If so, that means the athlete(s) had better made sure Erik was happy with them.
(usually it’s 1 foot from Bob)
How many kids are getting $100k from Texas each year? I only know of one and that is a one off situation (Guiliano).
Are multiple recruits getting 6 figures from Texas each year?
I would love to know who on the incoming Texas class is getting more than a scholarship, and how much.
I had a discussion with a sport supervising AD last week. He said in a high profile revenue sport he oversees, one player is getting a full scholarship + $1.5m and another player a full scholarship + $350k. Many in between.
In a lower profile non revenue sport an NCAA Championship medalist player is getting a full scholarship + $8k / month.
The $$$ is real.