The transfer portal is still going to work both ways. A power conference program offering 105 scholarships is going to result in even more players not satisfied with their place and moving to the MAC so they can actually get on the field. Does the increase in scholarships mean an increase in NIL funds? Or does the pot get spread a little more thin.

How many players actually get on the field in a typical game? 40? 50? IMO 85 is more than plenty.

Where I do see the issue is if we choose to honor 105 football scholarships, can we afford to honor an increase in sports like volleyball, women's basketball, etc?

Yeah, BLSS. That's what this is all about, a college education.

Again, where is funding coming from? And we’ve done this model before and it didn’t work then, so let’s try it again. This is just another nail going into the coffin of Olympic sports and women’s athletics.

If you don't have the money, you don't spend it. I'm not sure I understand what's complicated about this.

The G5 -- and many of its fans -- seem to think the NCAA and P5 are going to legislate competitive balance. Why they would, and why people think they will, is beyond me.

The G5 needs to learn how to exist without the P5s welfare, and the days of keeping up are well behind us.

Other than a small percentage of D1 football and basketball, I believe athletics are very much still about education. This will cut down on those opportunities. Even at the D-1 level, walk-ons and partial scholarship players have been an important recruiting arm for universities.

You're right -- I don't know if it will lead to net more individuals getting scholarships. At some schools, it absolutely will. At others, it won't. How that shakes out in the aggregate, I don't know.

But the isn't exactly that "that's good." It's that there's a segment of people who insist that college sports should be about education, but think it's a "body blow" to the G5 if P5 schools can offer more full scholarships. Because what matters most to them is competitive balance in athletics, and they'd happily keep more kids at Texas or Ohio State or UNC or wherever from getting a full scholarship in exchange for a system that doesn't disadvantage the G5 further relative to programs we're not actually competitive with.

The question of "where does the money come from" suggests that school spending on academics for athletes should be uniform and restricted, and have no relationship with resources and budget. I don't understand why.

And I hardly said "it would be a good thing" if fewer kids fit scholarships. In fact, I said I would prefer it if the money was there for more. But there is a financial reality, and I'm not sure why it's so universally accepted that Olympic sports should necessarily be scholarship sports given the financial realities at many schools.

Which scholarship sports do you think open up the most educational opportunities to people who otherwise wouldn't have had them?

I'd venture to guess that football is far and away number one. Do you think the demographic of scholarship golf athletes wouldn't otherwise have had educational opportunity? Youth soccer in the US -- even at the very highest levels -- is pay to play. Demographically, top college soccer athletes are rarely unlocking an otherwise unattainable academic opportunity because of their talent. Where else does it happen regularly? Gymnastics? Tennis? Lacrosse? Hockey? Swimming? Fencing? Maybe Track & Field? Remember the massive college admissions scandal at top universities? There are lessons there.

And this is really my point here -- you cite education and educational opportunities -- but only when it's convenient and advantageous to do so in pursuit of your actual top priority: making it possible for G5 schools like Ohio to compete at as high a level as possibly athletically.

You didn't post here to say "this is bad. Fewer kids will get an education." You posted this to say the G5 won't be able to keep up with how other schools fund education. And your complaint was solely through the lens of athletics and competitive balance.

This change creates fewer restrictions on how schools can spend on academics, and increases their budgets to do so. Your first post is very obviously about how that will allow deep pocketed schools to sign better players, and how that will impact college football on the field. That you're now desperately trying to pretend you're just looking out for the academic best interests of field hockey players is the exact hypocrisy my first post here was calling out.

At least own what you think, man. Instead you're pretending you said something else altogether and are pathetically pandering to L.C. so he can make a coherent point that you can actually stand behind.

Don't doubt there would be some people who couldn't afford it with partial scholarships. But om average, athletic scholarships go to students from more privileged socio-economic backgrounds. Remove the football players, and I suspect that data is even more pronounced.

And I'll decide what I respond to, dude. You don't have to engage -- I know you don't when people disagree with you. But in your words the future of Ohio Athletics are at risk, so it seems like a conversation worth having.

With no legal knowledge, I wonder if the MAC (and mid/low-major brethren) is able (and its members are interested) to set a scholarship limit lower than the NCAA standard. IIRC, this is the case in football travel numbers for conference games.

It's not a death knell or a body blow, because our ilk have been walking dead for quite some time. Our football has been meaningless for generations at this point.