After you remove the guys who have entered the Portal, I have 65 scholarship guys with eligibility returning.
This includes guys like Kair Elam and Emory Jones who I do not think they return, but it does not include guys like Ventrell Miller who some have suggested could potentially return for another year.
I'm going to assume at least 8 more transfer out, whether that's now or after Spring Ball/Summer.
65-8= 57
Sign roughly 7 on Wednesday and then maybe another 7 in February, which brings you to 71.
Add in roughly 9 Portal guys would bring you to 80 on scholarship.
These subtractions and additions are strictly educated guesses.
Why was the guess not more than 9 portal additions?
For one, due to the late formulation of our staff, we are getting a late start into the Portal process. Yes, I am hearing rumors of Portal contact, but it's on a relatively small number of Portal players and none have yet led to an official visit. Other teams have been busy bringing in for Official Visits. The last day to enroll for Spring Semester at UF is January 11, which is roughly when we have our full staff onboard (last day of NFL regular season is 1/9). Many of the Portal names you were aware of are close to ending their processes and many will be doing so in the next 3 weeks. Yes, more names will continue to enter the Portal in 2022, so plenty of guys to choose from, it's just not the full cycle of Portal players.
Here are the Portal adds last cycle from some of the most active teams: Mich St 14, FSU 12, Tennessee 10, SCar 10, Aub 9, USC 9, Oklahoma 8, Texas 7. many of these teams accepted portal commitments in December (looking unlikely for UF) and may have had a lower talent bar than UF might have.
What about the impact of the new NCAA Counter rule?
By my tracking we have 24 counters (25 minus Tyrone Truesdell Blue Shirt). The new NCAA rule is that a team can get an extra counter (up to 7) for every Portal entrant a team loses AFTER December 15, 2021. Given that we will be going through a cultural change it's extremely likely we will have more than 7 Portal entrants after 12/15, perhaps significantly more. So, given that environment it's fair to say we likely have 31 counters to use. I don't bring the 85 man limit into the discussion, because teams will make room (57+31=88) to utilize all counters if they can, especially those shifting schemes and culture.
What isn't known is if the extra counters are not used, can you carry those extra 7 counters to the next Academic Calendar year? If not, good chance they would try to use all the counters they have at their disposal (31-7-7= 17 possible portal additions). If they can carry over, then it may make sense to hold some to create an even larger bump class and bump portal class. With the numbers forecasted above (7+7+9), that would leave 1 normal counter to carry-over to next year and give them 26. I actually think the extra counters may not carry-over, so my projections dont make sense (why wouldn't UF not use all of their counters especially if they dont carry-over). I just think its going to be hard to find so many players in the Portal with so many teams also having those 7 extra counters. We may have to really loosen our criteria (including small school players) to find 15-18 Portal players, especially with our late Portal start. I'm not sure that makes sense to do. Maybe it does. Each of the two past cycles we have added 5 scholarship players.
This new NCAA rule really clouds the environment because teams who may not have had extra counters or only a few may now have quite a few counters to use, including teams like Bama, Ohio State and UGA. On the flip side for those top teams to be that active in the Portal AND stay within the 85 scholarship limit, they will have to push kids out and into the Portal which then creates more volume to choose from. It's a mess.
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