Dugout Dish: In the Clubhouse with EMD | DSA Update

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:11] Speaker B: Welcome to this week's edition of in the Clubhouse with EMD Baseball. I'm Andy Kirikidis, joined by my wonderful co host, Keith Glasser. How we doing? [00:00:20] Speaker A: Great. [00:00:20] Speaker B: How are you doing? Better. Now that I can read your shirt, a little. Shout out to sandlot. For those of you who are not on the cameras, Wendy Peppercorn. Shout out. Everybody knows Wendy Peppercorn was. She was a real deal back in. [00:00:36] Speaker A: The day, oiling and lotioning. She doesn't know what she's doing. [00:00:41] Speaker B: She knows exactly what she's doing. [00:00:43] Speaker A: Keith, I need a jet. He knew. [00:00:46] Speaker B: Today, another fallout from the NCAA house hearing, if you will. Obviously, the rosters have been cut to 34, but to no surprise, there's a caveat to that statement. So as of July 6, all NCAA Division 1 institutions were requested to submit a list of designated student athletes to the ncaa. Designated student athlete is someone who has been identified as a potential roster loss due to the impending roster cuts. This applies to incoming freshmen as well as currently rostered players. This tag sticks with this player for the remainder of their college career. And if you've received this tag, you are not subject to the roster rules, meaning you do not count against the 34. This is the NCAA's attempt at hitting the grandfathering in clause that we had talked about at length previously. Had a chance to talk to some guys this past weekend about this. There's still a lot of gray area in terms of what that tag, how that tag is determined. It sounds like there's some flexibility based on each individual institution. I believe that the original thought was if you're on money, you're going to receive money of any kind, nil or baseball, that you weren't going to be able to get tagged. But my understanding is that is not true. So this tag can fall to anybody that's on a current roster or high school players. Since that tag was submitted on July 6, an additional transfer portal window just for designated student athletes was opened July 7th and it will remain open until August 15th. So. [00:03:18] Speaker A: This has been fun. [00:03:19] Speaker B: So there's like we've waited. There's a lot to unpack here, but I guess to be as to be expected, right? Like we, me and you had batted this around, like how are they going to handle this? [00:03:36] Speaker A: Right. I think the other part of it too is that the designated student athlete, at least what I've read and what I've been able to discern, and I could be wrong, but this only counts for the schools that have opted in to the revenue Sharing and like the whole opt in clause. I also read that. [00:04:03] Speaker B: There'S. [00:04:04] Speaker A: If schools opt in after the deadline, like, you cannot, you can't identify designated student, student athletes after that. So even, even if you, even if you are like, if you're not opting in this year and you don't designate anybody a dsa, as, as we were proud, we're probably going to refer to them, you can't change that designation if you were to opt in in a subsequent year. So, you know, I don't know the list of schools. I'm sure we could probably find it. I don't know the final list of schools that have opted in and haven't. So I don't, you know, there's, there's, that's a whole, that's a whole other issue that might come up in the next three, four or five years. But yeah, I mean, I guess it's, it's their convoluted way of, of making this work for everyone. You know, I don't, I don't necessarily agree with this route, if you want my honest answer. I think that this is going to create a lot more confusion and balloon rosters for the next four years because realistically after this, like, there are no DSAs, it's really only current kids who are in college. But, you know, it has that Covid feel again of people just getting, not necessarily years, but now you can continue to stay, you can continue to keep roster levels high for the sake of keeping them high, you know, so I, I don't know. I don't know. Obviously we'll see how this plays out. Kind of interested to see what schools did based off of designating people. Student, you know, did they designate everybody? Did they. Does it, you know, is there only like two or three, you know, how many, how many student athletes are there that are designated? I don't know. And you know, in part, like this is, this is also to put blame at the, at the feet of the people who are making these decisions. And as convoluted and as messy as this sounds like, it's just as messy on this side of things for us doing this as it is for the coaches. Like, this isn't, this isn't a clear and easy way of going about doing this. And I think there's, and it's not just baseball, it's every sport. But, you know, we're, we're making these rules and new terms for things that didn't have to exist because we cut rosters. And you know, unfortunately that's what was going to happen with revenue sharing and you know, this becoming a little bit more of a business side of things in college athletics, like people are going to still make their money, you know, so if rosters are going to get cut, rosters are going to get cut. So you know, I, that might sound harsh, but that's kind of the reality of what this is, you know, but designated, doing the whole designated student athlete thing, I interested to, you know, eventually kind of figure out how many people are designated and what that means for people moving forward. [00:07:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Because it's, it's a one time thing right now, but these kids hold that tag. So if you're a high school, if you're a high school senior, you just graduated, you're going to be a freshman in the fall. And I've seen kids that I know are incoming freshmen have posted that they're going into the portal because they were designated. That kid doesn't count against anybody's roster for four more years. Yeah, the question I'm, the thing that I'll be really interested is like how big do some of these rosters get? Right. Like you were supposed to have 40 man rosters this past year. You go look at some schools and they got 53, 54, 55 guys on the website. They're probably red shirts, but either way, like you're carrying a lot of these guys around and they're non scholarship guys. But like this opens up a whole nother door. Like to your point, I haven't been able to get any direct clarity on how many can you designate. The sense that I got from talking to a handful of different schools is that each one of those institutions is handling this a little bit differently. Some people are saying you can't designate anybody that's on money. Other people are saying that you can. Other people had limits. You can designate six, you can designate eight, others didn't. So I, I don't know. Right. Like we're still trying to figure this out. The only thing I can say with, with certainty is that school submitted a list on July 6th of designated student athletes. Those guys do not count against rosters or gals for other sports. For baseball, those dudes don't count against rosters. There's now another portal window opened up giving those guys an opportunity to seek out other places. I'm really, really interested to see how schools handle this. Right. If you're one of these SEC schools or one of these ACC schools, you can bring 45, 50 guys on campus like you've done in the past and just keep numbers and super high level competition. And you know that you, you got some guys that don't counting at your roster. I don't know how it's going to work. So certainly more to come on this if we get a little bit more clarity. But, you know, the best I could do is right now is define what a designated student athlete is. And to me, the NCAA just kicked the can down the road. Maybe this is the right solution. I don't know. I, I'm on, I side with you on this. I think that, I think it should have just been rip the band aid off, go to 34, but here we are. [00:10:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't, I'm interested to see how obviously this all plays out. It's something that we've been talking about for seemingly close to two years now and quite a bit over the course of the last, this, the seven months of expecting the decision that finally came out in June. But you know, I think the, it's, it's making this a lot more difficult in the short term. I don't know what implications this is going to have, because I don't. You know, you're right. Like if they're gonna balloon rosters in certain spots. Do you lose your designation if you transfer more than once? You know, like, when, when, when do we stop that train? [00:11:31] Speaker B: My understanding, the way that I've read it, is that if you get tagged this year as a dsa, you hold that tag. So if you're a high school kid coming in, you don't count against anybody's roster as long as you were in college. So let's stick to the five years to play four. So you could technically be on somebody's roster for five years and not count against it. Right. [00:11:56] Speaker A: Which, which is absurd. Under new rules, you could theoretically go to four different schools in four years, all at the Division 1 level just to do it and potentially never play. [00:12:09] Speaker B: Well, then if you get designated as a, as an incoming freshman right now, you oddly have value if you go into the transfer portal beyond just your ability to play. Because everybody wants a deeper roster. [00:12:27] Speaker A: Right? Right. [00:12:28] Speaker B: And I, I would, I'd be really interested to see how many schools designated their whole incoming freshman class. Because it's. Some of these big schools, you could say, like, hey, we brought in 10 freshmen. Like, none of these guys would be here if we had to go to 34, because we were just going to shop in the portal. That's, I mean, that's. The other thing is like, I haven't heard of any solid Definition of what constant? Like there's no qualifications. It just seems like you can label. Right. And if we get more clarification on this, we'll come back and add some color to it. But as we're talking about it right now, I have heard of no qualifications. [00:13:09] Speaker A: Well, there are, there are two that I had found and I had bookmarked for our discussion today. This is from some legal website. It's a student athlete at a member institution who was either a certified as eligible to practice or for competition at a member institution on a roster, whether recruited or walk on, during the 2425 academic year prior to April 7, 2025, including student athletes who transferred or a student athlete initial enrollee at a Division 1 member institution for the 25, 6 academic year who prior to April 7, 2025, was recruited to be or was assured by an institutional staff member they would be a member of the institution's roster for the 2526 academic year. So essentially anybody who was currently on a roster last year and any incoming freshman who was told that they would have a spot, now that also gets a little gray too. But I don't think you're wrong. I wouldn't be shocked if there's schools that are just going to designate their entire incoming class and just say, hey. [00:14:28] Speaker B: We'Re, I mean you could argue it's the smart thing to do. [00:14:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Because then they can just keep their entire freshman class and with not have to worry about cutting them and they're never going to count against your roster and ultimately they'll, they'll start to weed themselves out if they're not, if they're not going to play for you and be good. Like they'll jump in the portal and go down or go to a different school, but it gives them the leeway to say like, hey, it's not going to work out here, but you're designated student athletes so you can jump in the portal and go wherever you want or the kid can make that decision too and you know, more or less go be the 37th guy on another roster. [00:15:10] Speaker B: The cert. The 37th man on a 34 man roster. [00:15:14] Speaker A: Yeah, like it's, it's like this is just, it's silly to me. Like it's like Monopoly money. We're just like, we're just making things up as we go and just whatever. Here you go. You get a roster spot. You get a roster spot. It's I, I like and I get the frustration on the, on the student athlete end and the parent end of Things especially with, with you know, this current legislation. But like the end of the day, you know, do you, I guess ultimately you have to ask the question of yourself. If you're going to go to this place, if you're going to go to a school that has, you know, 45, 50 guys on the roster because there's a ton of DSA's is there? And you're never going to play, is it worth it for you? Like that's what it comes down to. And you know, that's the reality of it. You know, you can go be the 60th guy on a roster somewhere, but you likely are never going to play. So what's it to. You just want to be. You want some cool gear and never travel and never play? Or do you want to go to a place where you're going to actually contribute? And you know, and I mean, I know my answer, but that's ultimately what this. All these, like you're in my. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you're delaying the inevitable for some people. Yeah, like instead of being told, and you might be told if you're not good enough at said school, you're just kind of delaying the inevitable. I guess it gives you, you know, it's kind of like the gamblers, you know, I got a chip in a chair, but you know, you got to go in and be really good and if you're not, then you know, hey, there's 60 dudes that are on this roster. Like, yeah, you don't count. But you're not going to travel, you're not going to play. You know, the decision's up to you. I just, you know, again, I feel like this is more just delaying the inevitable. [00:17:16] Speaker B: Fun times. [00:17:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm glad I don't have to deal with this on the coaching end. [00:17:25] Speaker B: I've yet to speak to a coach that is enthused about the current state of what they have to deal with from a roster perspective. And a lot of it has to do with the timing. Like, you know, you're. A lot of these coaches didn't know what the heck was going on until a couple of weeks ago just because how they sped it along. Like I can't even imagine being a football coach, your season starts in freaking five weeks and you just got clarification and now there's another portal window opening up. Like, so how does that work? [00:18:01] Speaker A: I have absolutely no idea. [00:18:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess if you want to, if you want to see it through rose colored glasses like the spring sport Coaches have it the easiest because they've had. They at least, like, get a little bit of Runway. They get their fall season to set their roster and all that kind of stuff. But I mean, it's, you know. [00:18:22] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, if you're. [00:18:23] Speaker B: Is what it is, and we're going to talk about this in a minute, but, like, it's. It's thrown a wrench in the whole recruiting process in terms of timing and. Yeah. [00:18:31] Speaker A: And I mean, if you're a. I mean, college football, I think kicks off like the 22nd or third, fourth, like that weekend, I think is like opening weekend. So you're. I mean, you practice for a couple of weeks before that. [00:18:48] Speaker B: Like, are you. Well, yeah. I mean, I don't know. I don't know the rules for college football, but neither do I. I'm just saying guys, you might be. You could be adding guys to your roster in the middle of your practice window. [00:19:01] Speaker A: If it's five or six weeks till game, till games are played, you, you know, I have to imagine you probably get three weeks of practice. You're looking at starting practice in two or three weeks. [00:19:13] Speaker B: And technically the portal will be open until during that window. [00:19:21] Speaker A: Oh, this is so fun. [00:19:25] Speaker B: And for the parents out there who were planning like, oh, I'm going to so and so school. Nope. No, you're not. We already got an apartment. Hope you can get out of that lease. All right, we'll report back on this as we get some more information. Like I said, I think this is the best we can do with it based on what we have and what we know. But, yeah, fun times. Another wrench to throw in it. Yeah. Anything else you want to add, Coach? Nope. Covered it. Thank you for listening, everybody. Tune in next week. We will talk to you then. Thank you for listening this week. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash that like button for us. Check us out on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts as well as Spotify people. Follow us on Twitter, Twitter and Instagram MDBaseball. If you want to find out what me and Keith do to help families and players navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.