right. good point.
the fifth year thing is what makes the scholarship issue so confusing. for instance - 10 kids from last year's class didn't see the field, making them essentially freshman next year in terms of eligibility.
now, lets say that of the 18 that signed today, 10 of them see the field next year (not likely - i would expect all of them outside of the oline prospects to see the field). that means that in four years, when the bulk of today's class is in it's fourth year of eligibility, there could actually be 20 fourth-year eligibility players on the team - ten from last year's class and ten from this years class, or two more in total than what were signed this year.
sufficiently confused? the problem really comes in when a significant number of players in any given class exhausts a year of eligibility during their first year on campus. if, for instance, all 20 of the kids we take next year play in their first year, by the time they're seniors, the combination of seniors and fifth year seniors on the team would stand at 30, making a very senior-laden team and leaving a dearth of experience the following year when a third of your team departed.
the bottom line is that, as weis mentioned today, the goal is to take a balanced number of players each year so that, when fifth year seniors are factored in, you don't find yourself with any given class that's disproportionately larger than the others.
