[Husker] Scholarship limit question (fwd)

[Mike Nolan]

> Does this mean we could have more than 25 scholarship players arrive this 
> fall for classes? I understand that the JC's scholarships will be counted 
> toward the first year they attended college, but does that mean that we can 
> sign more high school seniors now that we have 25 scholarship commits for 
> this fall? A friend of my son's claims that we can only have 25 scholarship 
> players show up this fall, no matter what year their scholarships count 
> toward..........

Though reading the NCAA handbook online always gives me a headache,
NCAA rules on football scholarships in Division 1-A are very clear 
on two points:

1.  A school can have no more than 85 players on scholarship at a time.

2.  A school can have no more than 25 players on scholarship in any class 
    year at a time.

The class year is based on when the student's five years of collegiate 
eligibility begins.  For someone who is a HS senior right now and will
be signing a letter of intent next week, the class year will be the 
2005-06 school year.  

There can be no more than 25 in that class year, so that means that there 
can be no more than 25 HS seniors who sign letters of intent with 
Nebraska next week.  

Someone in junior college today has already started using his five years
of collegiate eligibility, so he would be counted in an earlier class year.
Which year depends on when he started using his eligibility.

That means a school can sign more than 25 players next week, but the 
total in any class year can never exceed 25.  Schools like Kansas State
routinely have sign more than 25 players each February, because they
sign a lot of JC players.  It sounds like Nebraska will also have more
than 25 players on its list this year.  That's the first time I can recall
that happening.

Coaches are not permitted to talk about walkons until they actually become
students at the school, so they won't be mentioned next week.
--
Mike Nolan