Lawyers working on the $2.8 billion NCAA agreement suggested a big change on Wednesday about how many players teams can have. They proposed that athletes who lost their places could still play without counting towards the new limits, as long as they are still eligible.

Following a court order to create a new plan, the lawyers suggested in court papers that schools should make lists of all the players they did not choose, expecting the agreement to be approved. This number could easily be in the hundreds, and maybe even much higher.

The students called "Designated Student-Athletes" in the new legal paper might be asked to come back and try for a place on the team, but it's not certain, or they can go to different schools.

No matter what, those athletes won't be included in the new team size limits. These limits were part of a plan shown last fall and first approved by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in October.

The proposal would also extend this exemption to high school recruits whose promised places were later withdrawn, remaining valid throughout their college eligibility.

Wilken has already approved the essential elements of the settlement, which permit each university to distribute up to $20.5 million annually directly to their athletes, alongside over $2.7 billion in retroactive payments for players who claimed the NCAA and five major conferences unjustly prevented them from capitalising on their name, image, and likeness rights.

The recent proposal finished two weeks of hard work after Wilken made the lawyers for both sides go back to talk, saying the details about the team size in the plan were not good enough.

The proposal suggests substituting numerical restrictions on scholarships, such as the 85 allocated for football and 9.9 for men's wrestling, with limits on overall roster size, set at 105 for football and 30 for wrestling. While universities would have the capacity to grant scholarships to every member of a team, this would entail considerable expense, and it is widely anticipated that athletes without scholarships or those receiving only partial financial aid would be excluded.

Wilken clearly empathized with the hundreds of players who lost their positions as universities prepared to enact the settlement's provisions; approximately twelve recounted their experiences during an April 7th hearing.

Wilken instructed legal counsel to revise that section of the agreement, asserting that failing to comply would jeopardize the entire proposal.

The plaintiffs' legal counsel claimed they exceeded Wilken's approach by not only permitting schools to reinstate players they previously excluded without impacting their roster limits, but also making this exemption applicable to a new institution.

The plaintiffs say these changes to the agreement go beyond the protections the court asked for, according to their court document.

The lawyers pointed out there is no assurance that the athletes will regain their places on the team roster.

They wrote that while the defendants said the changes to the agreement mean schools can still choose their athletes, this was always true and is still true even with roster limits. They added that the changes make sure people who lost or would lose their spots because of the new limits will be in the same situation as if there were no limits, meaning the limits don't affect them.

The judge is likely to give people who oppose the plan a short time to file new objections before she makes her final decision. Steve Berman, one of the main lawyers for the people who sued, said earlier this week that those who object to the plan will not be happy with the new proposal.

Time is becoming critical for the NCAA and its 1,200 member institutions, which collectively oversee more than 500,000 athletes across diverse sports; the settlement terms were scheduled for implementation on July 1, with football practice commencing shortly thereafter.