I believe we had 21 sign last year. I also believe if a player is an early enrollee, he counts towards the previous year's 25. So, 21+5 =26. I wonder if someone like Gebbia or KJJ are paying their own way the first semester.
Why would those guys not be on scholarship? With guys graduating, there would be plenty of scholarships available.
Well, someone can correct me if I'm wrong. But, I thought this is an issue of the NCAA rule of only signing 25 per class. If you sign 23 one year, then the next you can actually sign 27 and have two count towards the previous year so both classes technically has 25.
So, if we signed 21 last year, I would think we would only be able to have 4 early enrollees on scholarship.
NOT an NCAA rule - huge contention nationally. 25 is actually a B1G rule, with an allowance of 3 oversigns for a maximum of 28. This causes some fits because this
should be the rule nationally, but other conferences ($$$$$$$EC) won't implement it and sign 28-30 regularly.
The only way a kid can count against last year's class if he early enrolls. So, if we signed 23 last year, and wanted to sign 30 this year, we would have to have at least 2 enroll early. That would put us at 25 last year, and 28 this year. Make sense?
The rule only applies to recruiting classes. Once kids are on campus, the only rule is that the football team stays under 85 scholarships. If we have the scholarships, they can enroll early. We graduated ~15+ guys this past weekend, meaning we have plenty of room for early enrollees.