Kalani Sitake On Building The 105-Man Roster

PROVO, Utah – The challenge facing every program in college football right now is trimming down rosters to the new 105-man limit.

Roster construction has been at the top of BYU football coaches’ minds as they gear up for spring practices beginning later this month.

The new roster limit of 105 players ties into the House vs. NCAA settlement.

As part of the settlement, it will usher in revenue sharing, where schools can pay athletes directly using revenue streams such as media rights and ticket sales to pay the athletes.

However, part of the settlement that ushers in revenue sharing is trimming down the number of athletes on a roster in a given sport.

For football, it’s 105 players. In the past, BYU typically had 123 players on a roster.

The final approved hearing for the House vs. NCAA case is scheduled for April 7, 2025.

That means after BYU completes spring practices, there will be roster cuts to get down to 105 before fall camp kicks off for the 2025 season.

BYU football is preparing for the new 105-man roster limit

The cuts weed out a lot of walk-ons, an area where Kalani Sitake’s BYU football program has produced stars in his first nine years guiding the program.

“With this 105 rule, we wouldn’t have Tyler Allgeier,” said BYU football head coach Kalani Sitake to KSL Sports. “We wouldn’t have a lot of young men that come through here and have been amazing walk-ons for us. They were roster spots, and then we developed them into becoming draft picks.”

BYU enters the 2025 season with heightened expectations. The Cougars finished 2024 with an 11-2 record and a No. 13 ranking in the final AP Top 25 poll.

BYU’s on-field success last season, paired with the “Love and learn” culture that Sitake has built, created a situation where roster building for the 10th team in his tenure centered around retention.

Many of the key performers from last year’s team return in 2025. But there’s a hard limit on how many players they can keep moving forward.

“If you look at the talent on this team, it’s kind of bad timing for the roster cuts to happen because we know we have to get down to 105. We’re sitting here looking at all the amount of talent that we have here, and even the talent that can develop from all of this, and we have to actually cut the roster down. That’s a little frustrating for us,” Sitake said.

“We’ve worked so hard to get the depth … as best as we possibly could, and we’re where we want to be, and now we have to make an adjustment. That’s just part of college football. Everybody has to do that, but it’s frustrating when you know you have some really good talent that you can’t sit there and rest on all the talent sitting around you now. You kind of have to make an adjustment.”

Providing direct feedback to the players

It’s expected that BYU will have one or two fewer players at each position.

At quarterback, BYU carried six signal-callers last season. This fall, they are projected to have four, with returning starter Jake Retzlaff and backups Treyson Bourguet and McCae Hillstead taking up three of those spots.

BYU is already getting close to the 105 number for the roster, as they had difficult conversations with players during the winter transfer portal window. But more cuts will have to happen again after spring.

“I think the question is, what’s the right thing to do,” asked Sitake.

“Having direct feedback with the players for the transfer portal in the winter and being honest with them about what we see and where they fit. That’s why we were able to see some of the guys going to the portal and find them other places to play. Then, having the same feedback with the portal that’s going to open up in April, allowing those young men to get to a new place. Our roster is already a lot smaller than it normally would be going into the spring because we’ve had to make some adjustments already. And really, the adjustment is just being straight-up honest with people.”

BYU had 15 players depart the program during the winter transfer portal window. Two of those 15 landed at Power Four programs (LB Aisea Moa and S Crew Wakley). Over half of the 15 players were either walk-ons or buried on the depth chart at their respective positions.

There was another segment of departures: veteran players who produced at a high level for BYU but were navigating injuries, such as Micah Harper (Montana) and Kody Epps (Western Kentucky).

“I would love to have as much depth as possible. On defense, when you have 11 starters, I would love to have 25 guys that can actually start. But that’s almost asking too much, and is that really fair to the young men that are playing when they have expectations of playing at the next level? I want to put guys to the next level, even if it means that they have to go somewhere else to do that. But you also want what’s best for the team and the program too,” said Sitake.

“So it’s balancing all of those things together and then doing what’s right, being honest and having that integrity to be upfront and to have the discussions, even if that’s not what the young men or their families want to hear. … Then allowing them the freedom and the opportunity to find another place to go, that’s the key.”

Kalani Sitake will look to find creative ways to build the BYU football roster

Another aspect of successful roster building under Sitake at BYU has been grey-shirt players. Grey shirts are athletes who delay their enrollment by a semester. In BYU’s program, greyshirts are typically used for returning missionaries or developmental high school prospects.

First Team All-Big 12 defensive end Tyler Batty, who is currently going through the NFL draft process, was once a greyshirt after he served a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Spain. How will situations like Batty’s be handled in the 105-man roster future?

“We have to be a little bit creative on how we balance that out because there’s some guys that want to be at BYU, regardless if they can play right now [or not]. Some of them are gonna have to burn their eligibility clock while they’re going to school. We have to have a system in place where we can still get those guys back with the program and try it again next year. I’m working through all of that. I want to make sure we’re in compliance with the NCAA, but at the same time, I want to do what’s right by these kids.”

Piecing together the 105-man roster is a tricky puzzle that coaches like Kalani Sitake are sorting through this offseason.

Sitake wants stories like Tyler Allgeier, who became the single-season rushing leader in BYU football history, to have a role in his program still.

Kalani Sitake added, “…So you look at those moments, and you sit there and say, ‘How can we still hang on to those guys?’ Even though we have to develop them in a different way or allow them to develop even on their own, and still give an opening for them to try out to get back on the roster. A lot can happen between six months in a young man’s life. Some guys grow and get bigger and stronger. Some guys, the light bulb click on for how they understand the game. We have to be able to be accommodating to all of that, and that’s the struggle. But we’re committed to doing it. We’ll find different ways.”

BYU football opens spring practices on Thursday, February 27.

Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for KSLsports.com and hosts the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (12–3 p.m.) on KSL Newsradio. Follow Mitch’s coverage of BYU in the Big 12 Conference on X: @Mitch_Harper.

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