A couple [too many] comments about the 105 threshold:
(1) The horse left the barn a while ago for having a college athlete system where schools are selling lucrative media rights for their events and some of those athletes are not receiving any type of compensation. If anything, it's tough to justify leaving a walk-on system in place when every program has at least a couple, if not more, walk-ons that are valuable contributors to their team. That team is also getting an almost, and soon-to-surpass, $100 million dollar check to broadcast the event. It's worse than an internship because the athlete isn't even getting educational credit. We can moan and complain but college football is mega business now. There isn't a legal case for leaving the old system in place. Now we are left with...
(2) Trying to negotiate between a mix of stakeholders that are pulling in different directions. School and athletic admins want less roster spots for cost control. These admins and legal counsel also want less roster spots as a future asset for negotiating with players. Coaches want as many roster spots as possible because all of them want maximum talent, depth, they all think they are the best scouts, etc. Players want maximum scholarships for obvious reasons.
(3) I've already seen some legal scholars say they aren't sure it's legally defensible to set a maximum threshold without congressional involvement. We might only have the 105 for a couple years and then this all is torn down and started again.
(4) All of the B1G, SEC, Big XII, and ACC schools will pay for 105 scholarships. For the same reason that each of these schools have increased spending by 30% every year: the checks keep increasing substantially and there is too many benefits for convincing the masses that *your* team can become a CFB contender. I'd also venture that any program that has a inkling of desire to make it into these top four conferences will also gladly pay for 105 scholarships (Boise State, Liberty, Memphis, Texas State, Toledo, North Texas, USF, East Carolina, UTSA, or just about every AAC, Sun Belt team). It's the price of business.
(5) ....but how will these schools afford it? Scholarships can be viewed as funny money. The school charges the athletic department the privilege of offering these scholarships but it's simply a shuffling of accounting on paper. There are no asset costs. There are things like discount rates and other accounting considerations, but university administration could decide tomorrow to not "charge" the athletic department for these scholarships and the business model wouldn't change. **I would argue that many universities already do this when they forgive internal loans they previously provided to athletic departments - such as this:
Arizona State forgives $300 million in athletic dept debt
(6) Now, some of you may wonder how can schools just afford endless scholarships when there is a limited amount of students admitted to the school. That's an Illinois way of viewing things. Many schools won't turn away kids wanting to enroll. Especially if they run a 4.5 40. Many schools will keep admitting kids if they can qualify. This isn't a problem outside of 30-40 programs.
(7) The question about small schools and how they'll invest in recruiting shouldn't be limited to small schools. It's going to be a choice for every program except for the bluest of blue bloods. The Georgia, Texas, Ohio State's of the world will recruit the best HS players in the country and fill in a couple gaps with the best transfers available. The rest of the programs will have varying approaches to how they will approach player acquisition/talent development. People like Dabo, Ferentz, or programs in talent-rich areas are likely to continue investing in the high school area and believe in an old school program development model. People like Chip Kelley, the late Mike Leach, and Deion believe that there time is more valuable with recruiting proven transfers and avoid the development model entirely. Then you have 95% of the other coaches somewhere in the middle having to tweak their approach every year based on HS classes and roster needs. I would argue that the model would MAC schools (outside of Toledo) has been bleak since the early 2010's and really hasn't changed. Before the transfer portal, your top players were just lured away to better programs the old fashioned way: A dark market with McDonald's bags full of money. Now it just happens in broad daylight. I'll keep saying it: people are upset now because they are publicly shown what was happening behind doors before. There are countless athlete testimonials out there of coaches asking for a price from HS recruits to sign. We shouldn't be offended now that we are seeing it in action and it includes current players.
(8) For those saying that college football is going down a path of destruction because of what's happened recently: You could easily pick up fandom in a D3 team like North Central College or many other programs if you want to root for the true college experience. Either you are naive to what things have been like for 50+ years or you aren't being serious with yourself about what's going to turn you away from the game.
