If I understand correctly, those 7 signees still count against the 25 annual limit, so in other words, they cant count any/many signees this year against last year.
Yes, this is correct.
Here is a summary of the new NCAA rule:
Three loopholes in the 7-year-old rule are closed, or mostly closed, they say.
1. Prospects who sign and do not qualify academically remain part of the signing class.
Coaches can no longer retain those spots to use in future classes as they previously have done. For instance, LSU took advantage of this when 2015 signees Brandon Martin and Jeremy Cutrer failed to qualify.
Willie Fritz is one of the lucky ones.
www.theadvocate.com
Now, in all fairness, I think the Orlando Sentinel article is misleading, and is also a rehash of everything we already know. Yes, there are three guys who have not yet reported, two for academics, one for a student visa issue. Chris Steele and Jalon Jones already counted as Initial Counters, you know, because they ACTUALLY enrolled. The players who have ALREADY failed to qualify and have already chosen to go JuCo also count as Initial Counters, though they have never actually enrolled at UF. And if these last 2 academic risks fail to qualify, they too will count as ICs. As for Wardrick Wilson, I have no idea whether the NCAA rule contemplates a failure to enroll for non-academic reasons. If the reason is academic, perhaps the NCAA would count Wilson as an IC non-qualifier, but if it were purely related to US Immigration paperwork issues, the NCAA might let UF have one IC back.
What is truly and profoundly disturbing about all of this (to Gaytor fans) is that these new NCAA IC rules were well-known, and they might have FOUR academic non-qualifiers in the same class. That is like THROWING AWAY four of your 25 slots. You can't sign ANYONE else in those slots, not a JuCo, not a transfer, not a grayshirt.
That is insane, particularly when you ALSO lost 2 guys to criminal/transfer issues. From the same class.
