I keep asking people on twitter that, and no one seems to know.
Pretty sure three would be the absolute theoretical max though, since we had 22 fall enrollees this year. The question is whether the four spring enrollees were back-counted. You would imagine they were (pretty sure we had the spots in the 2016 class), but I'm not sure.
I don't know either. However, I don't think we back dated any of the early enrollees last year. Just looking at the Class of 2016 from 247:
https://247sports.com/college/illinois/Season/2016-Football/Commits
That's 25 guys there although I think we can eliminate Peters and Pulley since they never showed up here. This allowed us to add President and Nickerson Jr. who counted against the limit of 25. This would mean that 2016 was in fact a full class and none of the 2017 early enrollees were back dated.
This would explain why we did not have a scholarship available for Hayes until Watkins was kicked off the team in May. Before that, we were talking about "blue shirting" punters since the class of was full.
What's amazing looking at that class is how many guys from that list are not only gone, but will never contribute to this team at all. The Class of 2015 isn't all that much better. This is why we're going to continue to be young well into next year :tsk:
With the 10 remaining scholarships, I wouldn't mind seeing us add some graduate transfers to the mix not only to add depth but to add some leadership. I know Meadors mentioned that Dorsey and Smalling were hoping he would come to Illinois to act as a mentor to them.
A graduate transfer at QB would also help bridge the gap to Thomas/Taylor/Rivers and give them all a chance to learn the offense, although it needs to be the right QB.
Another player on the OL would help, particularly at LT where we could be looking at playing Lowe or another true Freshman.
Adding graduate transfers also could help maintain some class balance as the Class of 2019 could be really small without another massive amount of transfers. Guys will certainly transfer after next year but if we only have 5 or 6 Seniors on the team...well do the math.
I would also like to see Echard get a 6th year since we're getting past the point where we could even have 85 scholarship players next yaer. He was arguably the best blocker on the team before he got hurt and could get playing time at FB/TE.
I also wouldn't mind seeing guys like McGrew, Hylton and Adesanya stick around if for nothing else but depth at this point. These were the guys I was expecting to leave, and maybe they still will. However, they could help bridge the gap to younger players and still end up with some playing time.