Clemson football: Scholarship limits are going out the door in CFB

Something significant just happened in the world of College Football and it’s going to be felt within the Clemson football program.

It was announced on Thursday that a local protein bar business owner would be paying the tuition for the 36 walk-ons on the BYU football roster.

Essentially, that means BYU now has every single player on scholarship instead of the limited 85 scholarships capped by the NCAA.

On the surface, this seems like a great thing. All these walk-ons who weren’t getting full academic help are now going to be able to attend college without having to worry about paying it back.

That being said, this has big implications for Clemson football and the entire CFB world

Long-time AP national writer Ralph D. Russo took to Twitter following the announcement saying that everyone needed to “take a breath.”

While Russo is right that we don’t know exactly how College Football will be impacted by this one move, the truth of the matter is that the implications are much larger than what he, and many others, seem willing to admit just yet.

College Football teams no longer have a scholarship limit.

Alabama, for example, doesn’t have to just recruit to the 85 scholarship limit if an outside business is sponsoring the team walk-ons. Now, you can have 4-stars who don’t even have a scholarship offer choose to walk-on and play for the Crimson Tide and they’ll still receive a full ride.

There have been times in the past where we’ve seen CFB programs recruit a player simply so a rival program wouldn’t have them. Now, that’s going to be the case on an even larger scale, at least for the rich schools.

Alabama, Ohio State and Texas, for example, will have no trouble finding a way to fund 110 players through those outside sources. The result will mean they have 3-stars where walk-ons used to be.

We’re not here to say that this is the end of the world as we know, but there are certainly huge implications for Clemson football and its ability to compete. Scholarship limits are now a thing of the past and we’re not sure yet if that will prove to be a good thing for Clemson or a bad thing.

Honestly, at this point, the only thing we know for sure is this: The rich are going to continue to get richer in College Football and in this new world order, it’s going to be all about how much money you have to compete.