As Notre Dame continues to tumble and trip into this new era of college football, they (and us) have to deal with the fact that many of the old norms surrounding the sport have gone the way of the dodo, Crystal Pepsi, normal political discourse, dinosaurs, and other things that are never coming back to life.

One of the big ones is the rule of 85 and the scholarship constraints. NIL has made the 85 man rule obsolete, and we will see significant changes to how the roster is managed.

The NCAA used to allow a 120 player roster with 85 of those players being allowed a full scholarship. Starting this year, the NCAA is reducing the maximum roster size to 105 — but all 105 are eligible to be put in scholarship. It’s being floated around that Notre Dame intends to use 95 scholarships while keeping 10 roster spots open to walk-ons.

If you were wondering why the GM search was so important, it’s because of stuff like this. As we got used to the normal spring hand-wringing over the years about the scholarship count and getting the number down to 85 by fall camp — there really is no such thing anymore.

For certain, we can expect some transfers out of Notre Dame at some point this spring — that’s just the nature of it all. What’s interesting is that the chart shows Notre Dame at the 95 man number they probably want. How much that goes down and up remains to be seen, but what is most important, is that if there is a chance to bring in more talent — numbers won’t hold back Marcus Freeman and Notre Dame. There’s plenty of room.