Are New Roster Limits Impacting Oklahoma's Preparations in Fall Camp?

Brent Venables had to trim the Sooners' roster this offseason as new roster limits were adopted across collegiate athletics.

Oklahoma coach Brent Venables speaks to players at a fall practice in Norman. | DOUG HOKE/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

NORMAN — College football is in a constant state of flux. 

New rules around the transfer portal and player compensation seem to pop up every month.

As teams finally get back to action with fall camp getting underway across the country, coaching staffs must now manage a new challenge — more restrictive roster limits. 

The House v. NCAA settlement, which came into effect on July 1, 2025, for schools like Oklahoma that opted to participate, also brings a new roster cap. 

For football, the upper limit of the roster will be 105 players after a brief transition period that allows schools to grandfather in players who would have otherwise been cut due to the roster limitation. 

 A year ago, Oklahoma had 127 players listed on its roster. 

As fall camp opened last Thursday, the Sooners had trimmed their official roster down to 111 bodies. 

But Brent Venables isn’t worried that practice will be disrupted through fall camp with fewer bodies to run drills and the scout team. 

“A lot of times during camp, the scouts don’t do a whole lot,” Venables said on Wednesday. “… You really rep three teams in fall camp.”

Venables prides himself on cultivating a great culture throughout his scout team during the season. Staying engaged with the scout team is the pathway to earning playing time late in the season, but those splits won’t happen until the Sooners approach game week preparations at the end of August. 

“From a total roster standpoint, a lot of times those guys are just holding dummies,” Venables said. “Or just observing, unless they’re part of that three-man rotation. This is a tough, challenging game. You can’t practice in walkthroughs and be ready to compete at a high level in this conference. You’ve got to do the really tough, hard things, and you’ve gotta practice physicality.”

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The depth throughout the team, if all things go to plan, will manifest once the Sooners enter the SEC slate. 

Injuries plagued the Sooners a year ago, as the roster started to take hits well before OU kicked off in its season opener, so Oklahoma knows firsthand just how crucial developing depth from the top of the roster to the bottom will be. 

“We’re gonna play physical,” Venables said. “This is a league that’s defined by the trenches. Gotta challenge our guys and do a good job of figuring out what that balance is, what that looks like. This is a violent game; injuries are part of the game. 

“Last year, first time I’ve been through that. In a 30-year career, that’s an aberration — I think that would qualify for that.”

The Sooners added a key piece to their athletic training staff over the offseason in former New Orleans Saints medical staffer Jonathon Gress. 

Gress, as well as the entire medical staff, work with OU’s coaches throughout fall camp to best prepare the team for the long season ahead. 

“You always lean in on there’s a lot of data,” Venables said. “There’s a feel for things … what it takes to get a team ready and the challenges of fall camp. We lean on everything from the sports science data that talks about the individual, the position groups, total mileage and some of the data that we get back. The feedback that we get from there and (we) tailor practice toward that.”