Someone please explain the 25 scholarship hardcap

LINK

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Every year around National Signing Day, the question arises. How do programs sign more than 25 players when that is the limit put in place for each school?

The answer is simple: Early enrollees can count towards the previous class.

Each college program has a compliance department that keeps track of these numbers, as does the NCAA to make sure each school is following the rule. It can get murky, but let's say you counted three early enrollee's towards last year's class. That means you have three extra spots to sign this year, assuming you have the early enrollees to count back.

However, there is a new rule in place where you can’t get an initial counter back. Say a prospect signs on Dec. 20, the date of the Early Signing Period, but fails to meet the academic requirements later to get into school. That young man still counts towards the 25. In the past a school would get that counter back and could just go add a JUCO prospect in June, elevate a greyshirt or even take a high school senior that is still out there unsigned. If that prospect fails to show up under the new rule, a school doesn’t get that back. This new rule — as some have incorrectly feared — does not mean you can't sign over 25 players. You simply need to have wiggle room created via early enrollees, as always — you just can't take too many risks and lose that initial counter.

It shouldn't be a big deal when you have basically 100 scholarships to work with over a four-year span and college football teams are only allowed to carry 85 scholarship players. You shouldn’t have any issues staying full unless you’re a program that consistently runs players off and then makes a lot of risky moves signing kids that won’t qualify.

As it stands right now, Minnesota is the only program that heads into this new signing period with over 25 commits, sitting at 26. They also inked 26 in the 2017 cycle but only took 22 in 2016. They’re going to have room to maneuver and count guys back. Ohio State’s No. 1 ranked recruiting class is up to 21 commits. There will be several schools like the Buckeyes expected to go over 25 by February’s National Signing Day.

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grad transfers or transfers count against 85 and the 25 is a hard 25 for juco and HS kids. No more back counting.

easiest way to explain.

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This is incorrect. Read the link above your post.

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read sec country this is what they told me

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Well they're wrong, You can read the actual rules as written, here ( PDF Of NCAA Manual, p 208), but the 247 article explains it better.

From the NCAA:

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A prospective student-athlete who signs a National Letter of Intent or an institutional offer of financial aid or a student-athlete who signs a financial aid agreement that specifies financial aid will be initially provided during the second or third term of the academic year may count toward the limit for that academic year or the limit for the next academic year.

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Remember Nebraska of the 70s.....must have had 150 players on the sidelines....

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Ok put that in layman's term

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Read the second post in this thread. That's the layman's breakdown

Seems like the big difference will come about next year. Most of the count back players are a result of players signed the year before that don't qualify and it basically became like you didn't sign them. Looks like you won't get those scholarships back. There will probably be far more players that are borderline academically that will not have a scholarship to sign until they become academically eligible.

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Remember Alabama of the 70s.....must have had 150 players on the sidelines

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FIFY