105 Scholarships

[Former Coach]

With the NCAA allowing an additional 20 scholarships for football, how do you think it will effect OM, MSU, and USM? I think it will hurt all 3 to an extent. It will allow the "big dogs" , Alabama, Georgia, and others to take 20 additional guys that would have gone somewhere else. That guy that in the past they didn't have room for that went somewhere else now signs with them. It's gonna remind me of the Bear Bryant before days before scholarship limits when he would sign players that he knew would never play for him but by signing them they wouldn't play against him.

 

OM is doing well right now, but Kiffin is making a living in the portal, which I think will grow even more now. Don't really know about Lebby yet as he's only had less than a year. I think the real problem will be for USM. Generally they sign guys that the SEC guys didn't have room for. Now with 280 additional players less, I think it hurts them and all the other non Power 4 teams.

[maroontide06]

They needed a reduction in football scholarships, not more.  It was completely asinine to increase the scholarship level to 105 for football.  If they aren't getting scholarship money, they're getting NIL money (which probably covers the cost of tuition, plus puts money in their pocket).  The NCAA is continuing to show how "smart" they really are.

[pancho]

Schools are already attempting to simply buy up extra talent just so other schools won't get them.

[Dawg83]

I think it’s a disaster in the making for everyone other than a select few programs. And State and OM aren’t in that select few.

[pancho]

ole miss is making every effort to run with the big boys.  recent allocation of 22-25 mil per for just this purpose

[hasbeen67]

I didn't know this was coming. Doesn't seem to make sense.

[Bulldogs4]

Total disaster. Make it 65 scholarships. With NIL and transfers nobody is going to have that many players on scholarship. Or the bottom 40 are going to have just a scholarship and nothing else. 
Completely ridiculous. Not just for State/Ole Miss but for everyone (except the very elite). Yes there is a lot of money floating around. But I don’t think people are interested in paying for the Fourth string punter in the team. 

 

That was Bear Bryant’s RX back in the 60’s when there were no scholarship limits. He would sign dozens of extra players just so they wouldn’t be on a rival’s team. Johnny Vaught did the same at Ole Miss going back to even the 50’s. 
 

We will see the same thing today but now dollars are in the equation. Although playing time will still factor in there somewhere because kids want to be on the field. 

Edited August 10, 2024 by Bulldogs4

[s1nglewing]

I could have played D1 nowadays. All I got was an offer from Millsaps out of HS way back when.

 

This looks like it'll water down the competition in D2 and below as well.

[MSUBulldog]

On 8/9/2024 at 10:23 AM, Former Coach said:

With the NCAA allowing an additional 20 scholarships for football, how do you think it will effect OM, MSU, and USM? I think it will hurt all 3 to an extent. It will allow the "big dogs" , Alabama, Georgia, and others to take 20 additional guys that would have gone somewhere else. That guy that in the past they didn't have room for that went somewhere else now signs with them. It's gonna remind me of the Bear Bryant before days before scholarship limits when he would sign players that he knew would never play for him but by signing them they wouldn't play against him.

 

OM is doing well right now, but Kiffin is making a living in the portal, which I think will grow even more now. Don't really know about Lebby yet as he's only had less than a year. I think the real problem will be for USM. Generally they sign guys that the SEC guys didn't have room for. Now with 280 additional players less, I think it hurts them and all the other non Power 4 teams.

There's no question that larger roster sizes cater to larger programs and some Big Ten programs have already publicly stated that they will remain with 85 as their personal roster size regardless of the increase to 105 allowed by the NCAA.  The era of the transfer portal allows for example the six four-star players who transferred from Alabama to FSU during the offseason to seek new potential NIL money by potentially seeing increased playing time at FSU vs sitting on the bench at Alabama. The era of the portal being linked to NIL funds should serve to negate to some extent players being locked in like they were during the days of Bryant that you mentioned. Kiffin actually had the number one ranked portal specific class in the nation not including national high school recruiting rankings. Lebby and Hutzler combine for a wealth of power-5 experience on both sides of the football and adding Barnes as a co-defensive coordinator after Barnes elevated Memphis's defense as the defensive coordinator during the prior two seasons makes for a nice DC-wing man in terms of a stabilization factor. Lebby and Hutzler are both power-5 veterans at this point and now they get to prove they can create and sustain the same atmosphere that saw MSU experience 13 consecutive bowl games up until last season. A savvy move that I feel like Lebby made in the offseason was utilizing two senior signal callers on offense in QB1 Shappen and starting center Ethan Minor both of whom come highly touted as upper-tier veteran 3-star athletes with proven track records.  Shappen has already commented on how nice it is to have a senior center who can come in and call the plays, run the line and make adjustments from day one. Ethan Minor was the top-rated center in the country when Miss St. grabbed him out of North Texas. In spite of a new offense being installed, the pace should be helped along by the experience of Shappen and Minor vs utilizing a freshman or a sophomore year one under Lebby at the two aforementioned positions. Miss St. did a nice job in the portal of actually building what could be a SEC caliber offensive line to operate behind with transfers from LSU, Texas Tech and Memphis across the board on the offensive line. 

Edited August 12, 2024 by MSUBulldog

[MSUBulldog]

Also, I'm not as prominent on this site when it comes to starting threads so I'll simply add this tidbit in here that not only are roster sizes increasing from 85 to 105 but there's a vote upcoming which will more than likely see the portal window slashed from 45-days to 30-days jfyi.