I believe they would have 4 years but not sure exactly, if they practice with the club the second half of the year I don’t think that would count towards eligibility. So their first year of 4 would be their sophomore year. I am just guessing an AD or coach should know.
That being said, there are not that many teams with giant rosters. lots of unranked teams have 16-18 so if a kid really wants to play in college they will have to start studying roster sizes and talk to schools that they have better odds with. After all of these 5th year and grad students move on I think the game will get better. I did some quick math and not counting the IVY’s in the top 18 D1 Schools (left out Navy and AF as well) there are potentially 53 spots on 15 teams. Some like UCSB and UC Davis have to cut deep to bring anyone new in as they are one over before bringing in a new class.
| School | 2024 roster size | sr/grads | 2025 open spots |
|---|---|---|---|
| UCLA | 28 | 5 | 1 |
| USC | 26 | 7 | 5 |
| Stanford | 25 | 6 | 5 |
| Pep | 28 | 6 | 2 |
| UOP | 36 | 17 | 5 |
| UCI | 27 | 7 | 4 |
| Fordham | 25 | 10 | 9 |
| CAL | 32 | 9 | 1 |
| Princeton | 27 | 10 | N/A |
| Long B | 28 | 7 | 3 |
| SJ state | 25 | 7 | 6 |
| UCSB | 28 | 3 | -1 |
| UCSD | 29 | 9 | 4 |
| Harvard | 17 | 4 | N/A |
| Santa CL | 27 | 4 | 1 |
| LMU | 23 | 4 | 5 |
| UC Davis | 29 | 4 | -1 |
| Brown | 20 | 2 | N/A |
| CBU | 24 | 4 | 4 |