Here's how:
We currently have 80 scholarship players on roster, so 5 available scholarships right now.
We currently have 11 Seniors and Red Shirt Seniors on roster, so 11 scholarships will open up through graduation.
There are 4 players who could declare early for the NFL draft (Willis, McIntosh, Norton, Walton).
There are 7 Red Shirt Juniors who will have their degrees, so we could choose not to renew their scholarships for a 5th year (Rosier, Jones, McCray, Smith, Mayes, Gray, Langham).
There are 3 underclassmen that we should encourage to transfer if they don't show signs of providing quality depth in 2017 (Fines, Mahoney, Henley).
Add that all up and we could get to 30 in the 2018 class if the staff really wanted too.
That would leave the following needs to be filled with 2018 recruits. This is based purely on numbers:
QB - 1
DT - 6
DE - 2
OL - 5
LB - 2
CB - 4
S - 0
RB - 3
TE - 2
WR - 4
K - 2
Couple of things of note here:
1. It's going to be nearly impossible to find 6 DT's. We really need one or both of McIntosh and Norton to stick around, and we need Ford and Martin to pan out. We'll likely need to get at least 1 JUCO DT and bring in a grad transfer. Or, Bethel or DJ Johnson may need to move inside.
2. We currently have 7 Safeties on the roster (assuming Smith qualifies and 1 of Jackson or Redwine makes the move Safety). Typically, schools would only allot 6 scholarships to the Safety position, but given the importance of Safety in Diaz's defense, maybe our number is 8. That leaves us with 1 available spot because none of the 7 graduate. Obviously, we are going after more than 1 Safety. Our number is probably 3. Something has to give there. Do we load up and deal with the numbers through attrition?
We currently have 80 scholarship players on roster, so 5 available scholarships right now.
We currently have 11 Seniors and Red Shirt Seniors on roster, so 11 scholarships will open up through graduation.
There are 4 players who could declare early for the NFL draft (Willis, McIntosh, Norton, Walton).
There are 7 Red Shirt Juniors who will have their degrees, so we could choose not to renew their scholarships for a 5th year (Rosier, Jones, McCray, Smith, Mayes, Gray, Langham).
There are 3 underclassmen that we should encourage to transfer if they don't show signs of providing quality depth in 2017 (Fines, Mahoney, Henley).
Add that all up and we could get to 30 in the 2018 class if the staff really wanted too.
That would leave the following needs to be filled with 2018 recruits. This is based purely on numbers:
QB - 1
DT - 6
DE - 2
OL - 5
LB - 2
CB - 4
S - 0
RB - 3
TE - 2
WR - 4
K - 2
Couple of things of note here:
1. It's going to be nearly impossible to find 6 DT's. We really need one or both of McIntosh and Norton to stick around, and we need Ford and Martin to pan out. We'll likely need to get at least 1 JUCO DT and bring in a grad transfer. Or, Bethel or DJ Johnson may need to move inside.
2. We currently have 7 Safeties on the roster (assuming Smith qualifies and 1 of Jackson or Redwine makes the move Safety). Typically, schools would only allot 6 scholarships to the Safety position, but given the importance of Safety in Diaz's defense, maybe our number is 8. That leaves us with 1 available spot because none of the 7 graduate. Obviously, we are going after more than 1 Safety. Our number is probably 3. Something has to give there. Do we load up and deal with the numbers through attrition?