College football is “mirroring” college wrestling in many regards. NCAA increased scholarship count to (30) for P4 conferences….up from (10ish) they used to have.
On the surface, it appeared that would help more kids get scholarship opportunity. The opposite has happened though….where schools used to carry up to 50 wrestlers that could get partial scholarships, now it’s reduced to exactly 30. When that is multiplied across all programs, you see a huge net decrease in wrestlers on teams.
Division I football teams can now disperse up to 105 scholarships (in an increase from the 85 limit).
Very few teams will carry more than 75-80 scholarship players anymore because of NIL. We are going to see fewer DI players with a 105 limit, than when the limit was 85, because of NIL.