Official NCAA participation research shows that in over 1 million high school football players across America, about 3% make it onto a Division 1 college team. That number is 1.4% when considering NCAA athletes who make it pro. Recent changes have brought a financial revolution to college football, but the NCAA president Charlie Baker feels that not enough kids are reaping the benefit.

In his recent appearance on the Pivot Podcast, Charlie Baker spoke out against this trend of pros seeking college rosters after not making it in the NFL to chase college money. He warned that it steals roster spots from some incoming freshmen who are more deserving of the chance. 

“I think it would have been naive for us to assume that if we figured out a way to create revenue sharing in the high-revenue D1 sports that there wouldn’t be schools and kids who would want to play forever,” Baker explained on the podcast. “The problem with that is you steal opportunities from the kids who are behind you. And that has been sort of our fundamental view on this all the way through, which is you get the opportunity that you’re promised, and then you move on.”

Today, NFL contracts for the practice squad are projected to pay out around $13,750 weekly, or $247,500 annually. Major college programs can easily match and even exceed this number through school revenue and NIL packages.

This makes colleges an attractive financial safety net. Especially with the NCAA scrapping its old “5-to-play-4” model to establish a straightforward rule, as Charlie Baker called it: athletes begin at 19 and finish at 24. 

This rule change made it so that while younger classes chose their path, the NCAA ruled the 2022 class expired, prompting lawsuits from players seeking lucrative 5th-year college deals.

A Louisiana state court judge escalated this issue with a temporary restraining order for 16 plaintiffs that stopped the NCAA from preventing signed pros from coming back to play college football.

So now, players like Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris, who have completed training camps with their respective rosters, are allowed to leave NFL training camps and pursue immediate college football returns at LSU for better financial deals than what staying on the practice squad offered them in the NFL. 

While the Louisiana judge cleared these players, the SEC was not happy about things. This led to an emergency policy to instate a ban on former pros alongside a lawsuit against LSU.

“The idea that you can then come back and play against the 93% who are never going to see a seat on a professional football team and get an extra year…,” Baker further explained on The Pivot Podcast. “…First of all, that person will take space and play and time away from somebody else. Secondly, they’ve already played out, aged out, finished, whatever term you like. On some level, as I said, I don’t blame them for wanting to do it. I do blame the adults for encouraging this.”

The roster math inadvertently becomes the main issue. As per the NCAA vs The House settlement, FBS football teams have a strict roster cap of 105 players. For every pro who returns to college football, an incoming high school recruit earning his first college chance loses his developmental spot on the roster.

Court-ordered returnees can be grandfathered in as “Designated Student-Athletes” (DSA), legally exempting them from the 105-player limit. Still, their massive contracts drain the program’s available revenue-sharing funds.

Speaking on why the new rule was brought in in the first place, Charlie Baker talked about bringing in an age-based system in football, as is present in most other sports. For him, it is more about “start by 19, finish by 24” than “5-in-5.” 

The 2022 class, however, was informed that their eligibility would terminate by 2026, which particularly impacted players like TE Dae’Quan Wright, who entered college in 2022 and sought to return after participating in NFL camp with the Cleveland Browns.

Wright secured a temporary court injunction in Louisiana allowing him to enroll and practice with LSU. But he remains sidelined on game days as LSU navigates possible legal sanctions and decisions.