Lawyers involved in the big $2.8 billion NCAA deal suggested a big change on Wednesday about how many players teams can have. They said that athletes who lost their places could play without being counted in the new limits as long as they can still play.

The court told the lawyers to make a new plan. The lawyers suggested that schools should make lists of all the players they took off teams because they thought the agreement would be approved. There could be hundreds of players on these lists, or even more.

These students, called “Designated Student-Athletes” in the new legal paper, might be invited back to compete for a place on the team, but it's not guaranteed, or they can go to different schools.

Either way, those athletes won't be included in the new team size limits that were announced last fall and approved by a judge in October.

The proposal would also allow high school players who were promised places but then lost them to be exempt. This would last as long as those players can still play in college.

Wilken has agreed to the main parts of the deal. This means each school can give up to $20.5 million each year directly to their athletes. Also, more than $2.7 billion will be paid to former players. These players said the NCAA and the five biggest conferences unfairly stopped them from making money from their name, image, and likeness.

The newest plan came after two weeks of hard work. Wilken had sent the lawyers for both sides back to talk because he said the details about the number of players in the plan were not okay.

The plan proposes changing the rules. Instead of limiting how many scholarships a team can give, they will limit the total number of players on the team. For example, football teams used to be limited to 85 scholarships, but now they will be limited to 105 players. Schools can give scholarships to everyone, but this would cost a lot. Because of this, people think that some players who don't get full scholarships won't be on the team.

Wilken clearly felt for the hundreds of players who lost their places on teams as schools got ready to follow the agreement. About twelve of them told their stories at a meeting on April 7.

Wilken told the lawyers to change that part of the agreement. The NCAA first said no, arguing that changing decisions already made would cause more problems. Wilken said they must make the changes or the whole plan could fail.

The lawyers for the people who sued said their idea was better than Wilken's. It meant schools could bring back players they had cut without it counting against their team limit, and new schools could use this rule too.

The plaintiffs think these changes to the agreement give more protection than the court asked for, according to their court paper.

The lawyers said there is no promise that the athletes will get their places on the team back.

The defendants said the changes to the agreement mean that schools and their sports teams can still decide which players are on their teams. They argued this was always true and hasn't changed, even with limits on the number of players. They wrote that the updated agreement makes sure that players who lost or would lose their places because of the new limits will be in the same situation as if there were no limits. This means the limits do not apply to them.

The judge will probably give people who are against the plan a short time to send in new objections before she makes her final decision. Steve Berman, one of the main lawyers for the people who started the case, said this week that those who are against the plan likely won't be happy with the new idea.

Time is running out for the NCAA and its 1,200 schools with over 500,000 athletes.