If a universal 5th year becomes reality, women’s soccer will be hit especially hard--it presents more than a coaching problem, it's a math problem.
The current 28-player cap already gives women’s soccer very little room to absorb even the occasional redshirt year; extending that same possibility to every athlete would turn an existing strain into a routine roster problem
The 28 cap--or 2.5x number of field players, has always seemed arbitrary and disproportionate compared to:
Basketball: 15 for 5 = 3x
Women’s lacrosse: 38 for 12 = 3.17x
Men’s lacrosse: 48 for 10 = 4.8x
Now do the math:
28 ÷ 4 classes = 7 per class
28 ÷ 5 years = 5.6 per class
You cannot create a system that presents a possiblity of every athlete occupying a roster spot for five years while still capping women’s soccer at 28 and expect the result to be stable. The math guarantees compression. And when rosters compress, student-athletes pay the price — through cuts, lost opportunities, and de-committed players.
Remember the cuts and chaos that followed when roster limits were first imposed after the NCAA settlement? In women’s soccer, a universal 5th year would risk making that same kind of roster compression not an isolated event, but a recurring reality under our current roster cap.
#MathProblem #PutTheAthletesFirst