I do not understand what is so difficult about understanding scholarships in football...yet it is the most asked question on the boards.
- You can never have more than 85 on scholarship at a time.
- You cannot put on scholarship more than 25 players during one class....you can sign letters of intent...but that just starts the process prior to academic admission, physicals, etc.
- January enrollees can count toward the previous class or the class coming in later that year in the fall.
- Scholarships are one year renewables...GT has never taken one away that I can remember.
This years situation:
- We have 81 on scholarship now including Chris Jackson. This is 4 short of the max.
- We have 6 scholarship seniors this year (Voss, Howard, Sellers, Griffin, Hill, and Frierson). This creates 6 more openings for next fall as their eligibility runs out in the spring.
- Zach Krish, a reshirt junior on scholarship, has already indicated that he will depart the program upon graduation this June. This creates 1 more opening.
- As of today.... 4 open spots + 6 graduating seniors + 1 player leaving eaerly = 11 open spots to come in fall of 2010.
- There will certainly be attrition over the next 12 months either due to academics, injury, transfer, NFL, etc...this is why the coaches may take 12 or 13 commitments (one or two over the current openings) knowing that something will clear up before fall of 2010.
You really do not want to be at 85 max because you want to have room to reward walk-on's and take transfers...always keeping one or two open. However, we are willing to carry 85 next year to try and get some balance back to the recruiting class as this years is small...and next years is 21 at minimum.
Going back to the original post...yes we have signed 96 players over 5 years....but we have also awarded 8 additional scholarships through walk-on's and transfers. (Allen, Egbuniwe, Jackson, Blair, Krish, Bedford, Cox, Edwards). That is 104 scholarships in 5 years and we have 81 now....that is negative 23.
