Lawyers tweaked the major NCAA settlement. Is it enough for the judge?

If settling the landmark House v. NCAA case was ever a game of chess, it’s now a full-on game of chicken between lawyers and U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken.

The latest: After Wilken asked the lawyers last month to change how the settlement would implement new roster limits, they came back with their tweaks Wednesday, saying schools would be permitted – though not required – to grandfather in current athletes who have lost spots (or could lose spots) because of the potential legal agreement.

If a school decides to keep any number of those athletes, none would count toward roster limits for the rest of their college careers. If the school does not retain them, these athletes could transfer to another program and not count toward the limit for a new team (also for the rest of their careers). This roster limit exemption would also apply to incoming freshmen who were promised a spot that was then cut because of downsizing for a possible settlement.

The lawyers laid out the changes in a series of filings Wednesday evening. Will it be enough for Wilken to grant final approval, setting the stage for colleges to start paying their athletes directly as another term of the settlement? Unclear. Time will tell.

Wilken drew a clear line in the sand April 23: Grandfather in active athletes, or she would hold off approving the settlement as written. She gave the two sides – the NCAA and major athletic conferences on one, the plaintiffs on the other – two weeks to figure out a response.

In the interim, the lawyers met with each other; with a mediator, as the judge ordered; with administrators from a number of schools; with various conference leaders; and with the attorneys representing the three main groups of objectors to the settlement. But instead of requiring schools to preserve spots for current athletes, as Wilken appeared to be asking, the revised terms would give schools the option to.

To enact that plan, all schools opting into the settlement – including every power-conference program – would have to submit a list of the athletes affected by roster cuts. It is unclear whether this will suffice for Wilken.

NCAA officials expect the objecting attorneys to still oppose the settlement. After Wilken ordered revisions in early April, she gave those objectors a day to file one-page response briefs. Her process and timeline for this round of changes was not clear Wednesday night.

If approved, the settlement would pay close to $2.8 billion in back damages to former athletes, current athletes and their attorneys. It would resolve three antitrust cases – House v. NCAA, Carter v. NCAA and Hubbard v. NCAA – which were all challenges to past restrictions on athlete compensation.

And, most important, it would permit schools to directly pay athletes for the first time, ushering in the next economic model for Division I college sports.

But potential roster caps have been Wilken’s hang-up. The settlement would take existing scholarship limits and replace them with those roster caps. For example, under current NCAA rules, a Division I football program can give out a maximum 85 full scholarships, though it can also have upward of 130 players on the team. Under the House settlement, there would no longer be such scholarship restrictions in any sport. But football teams couldn’t carry more than 105 players, meaning many could get cut, including a significant number of walk-ons across the country.

Before Wilken’s ultimatum, the attorneys argued that schools have already planned for next year as if the settlement would be approved, cutting athletes in anticipation. For that reason, they explained, tweaking the rollout of roster limits would create chaos.