Colorado didn't sign any recruits on National Signing Day... but that's fine

BOULDER — The Colorado Buffaloes didn’t make any moves on National Signing Day 2021.

A pair of transfers, Tennessee quarterback J.T. Shrout and Oklahoma defender Robert Barnes, made their decisions to join Colorado official, but the Buffs didn’t add a single freshman to their ’21 class. Colorado filled out its freshman class with 17 recruits during December’s early signing period.

If nothing changes, the 2021 freshman class will be Colorado’s smallest since 16 freshmen enrolled in 2016. Classes of 27, 24, 25 and 23 enrollees over the past four years make the 2021 class look even smaller.

But a small class doesn’t alway mean the coaching staff failed.

For starters, big classes over the past few years make it tough for Colorado to stay under the NCAA’s 85 scholarship limit for FBS football. In theory, the scholarship limit allows for 21 players signed in each class, who all stay for their four years. When you factor in that half or more of the players take a redshirt year at some point, meaning they count against the scholarship limit for a fifth season, those 25-recruit classes take up a lot of space. 

The truth is, when you load up on recruits for four consecutive years, you’re often forced to take a small class to balance the scholarships out. Either that or you’re finding a bunch of guys who leave early for the NFL or enter the transfer portal.

This year is even tougher. The 2020 season didn’t count against anybody’s eligibility (due to an NCAA decision this fall) and now players who would have counted against the scholarship limit for five years will count against it for a sixth, if they want to return.

Colorado is bringing back three players for a second senior year — Sam Noyer, Nate Landman and Kary Kutsch — but the seniors aren’t the ones who make the math difficult.

The NCAA isn’t enforcing the 85-scholarship limit in 2021 (in response to the decision to grant an additional year of eligibility) but it’s rumored to be coming back in full effect in 2022.

As it stands now, Colorado will be sitting with 87 players on scholarship after the three seniors leave following the 2021 season. 

More scholarships could come open though, as 2021 will be the fifth season at CU for 11 juniors. Guys like Terrance Lang, Carson Wells, Casey Roddick, Jalen Sami and Chris Miller could be ready to move on with their careers, after what would have been their senior season, if not for COVID-19.

With more juniors likely headed out than in a normal year, and the attrition that befalls every program every year, the Buffs won’t have trouble getting from 87 to 85 scholarships, but getting that number low enough to bring in a full freshman class in 2022 will be a challenge for Colorado and every other school in the country.

Although it would have been nice to add a big name or two on Wednesday’s signing day, Colorado doesn’t have a need for more bodies at this point. They are close to capacity, if they haven’t hit it yet.

The effects of giving every player an additional year of eligibility will impact college football for four or five years, the length of a player’s college career. The impact will diminish each year and it would be easy for the NCAA to tweak the scholarship limit to reflect that. Maybe there needs to be a limit of 95 in 2022 and 90 in 2023 before going back to normal? As of now, coaches are operating under the belief that it will be 85 in 2022.

All I know is the numbers are tough to work out for every program and a small recruiting class is one way to ease the burden.

It’s no big deal that Colorado didn’t sign anybody on Wednesday, though there were a couple of targets the Buffs had hoped they’d land but knew they weren’t in the running for when the big day came around.

It isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, though.

If you’re upset that the Buffs finished 11th in the Pac-12 in average recruit ranking in this cycle, according to 247sports.com, then that is certainly your right. The current regime says it wants to make sure it gets the right people with the right work ethic, and it’s their right to sign who they want.

The good news is that new strength coach Shannon Turley could make the Buffs’ approach more successful.

Turley has experience taking a bunch of 3-stars and turning them into big, strong and fast football players who can win at the highest level. The Stanford Cardinal didn’t bring in a single four-star recruit in the two classes that were built before Turley arrived in 2007. When those classes were seniors and redshirt-seniors, they won an Orange Bowl.

Nobody saw that coming five years earlier, when Stanford was 1-11.

All we can do is wait and see what this 2021 class does for Colorado.

(And argue about what they will do until then.)