By James Sutherland on SwimSwam
With the effects of the pending NCAA v. House settlement already being felt by college programs around the country, the implementation of roster limits has been a hot-button topic in swimming and diving circles in recent months.
There are reports of several elite NCAA programs making seismic cuts to their teams in order to meet next season’s limits, with SEC men’s teams being hit the hardest with a designated limit of 22 athletes compared to 30 for the women and other Power 4 conferences.
The College Swim Connect Roster Cut Tracker currently says that 44 of 94 Power 4 swim and dive teams are over their roster cap for next season, and an estimated 259 swimmers and divers must be cut to meet those demands.
But have roster sizes always been so big?
Albeit a small sample size, we looked at a dozen men’s and a dozen women’s rosters from the 2003-04 to the 2015-16 season, looking solely at elite Power conference teams and how big their teams were relative to today.
WOMEN’S ROSTERS
| Season | Team | Size |
| 2015-16 | Stanford | 26 |
| 2014-15 | Virginia | 35 |
| 2013-14 | Indiana | 26 |
| 2011-12 | Auburn | 25 |
| 2010-11 | NC State | 23 |
| 2010-11 | Tennessee | 31 |
| 2009-10 | Georgia | 27 |
| 2008-09 | Arizona State | 27 |
| 2007-08 | Cal | 25 |
| 2006-07 | Michigan | 38 |
| 2005-06 | Texas | 29 |
| 2003-04 | Florida | 29 |
| Average | 28.41 |
MEN’S ROSTERS
| Season | Team | Size |
| 2015-16 | USC | 31 |
| 2014-15 | Virginia | 25 |
| 2012-13 | Indiana | 39 |
| 2011-12 | Auburn | 27 |
| 2010-11 | NC State | 27 |
| 2009-10 | Georgia | 25 |
| 2008-09 | Arizona State | 16 |
| 2007-08 | Texas | 33 |
| 2006-07 | USC | 37 |
| 2005-06 | Cal | 36 |
| 2003-04 | Florida | 34 |
| 2003-04 | Michigan | 25 |
| 29.58 |
Again, a small sample size, and not every program has rosters from 15-20 years ago still up on their website, but the overall story here is that, while there are a few teams coming out above the 30-roster threshold, the average for both men and women is under 30.
Compare that to today, where the average size in each Power 4 conference was above 30 this past season.
AVERAGE WOMEN’S ROSTER – 2024-25
Data courtesy of The College Swim Connect Roster Cut Tracker
| Total Athletes | Teams | Avergae Size | |
| SEC | 447 | 13 | 38.38 |
| ACC | 463 | 15 | 30.86 |
| Big Ten | 450 | 14 | 32.14 |
| Big 12 | 334 | 10 | 33.40 |
AVERAGE MEN’S ROSTER – 2024-25
Data courtesy of The College Swim Connect Roster Cut Tracker
| Roster | Teams | Avergae Size | |
| SEC | 388 | 11 | 35.27 |
| ACC* | 397 | 13 | 30.53 |
| Big Ten | 306 | 9 | 34.00 |
| Big 12 | 223 | 7 | 31.85 |
*ACC men’s total not including suspended Notre Dame and Miami (FL), which only has a diving team.
There were 11 teams that currently list a roster of 40+ athletes, while in the limited look we had at rosters from 2003-04 to 2015-16, the biggest roster was 38.
Based on the numbers, roster sizes have slowly climbed over the past two decades, exacerbating the pending roster limits. If this restriction were handed down 10 or 20 years ago, some programs would still have to make some adjustments here and there, but the impact as a whole wouldn’t be as significant on the sport.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: How Have NCAA Roster Sizes Changed Over The Last Two Decades?