Alabama Football Finds Its Way to an 85 Man Roster

Earlier today, Brent wrote about the new roster release of Alabama players and some weight changes. Now, we will tackle the scholarship numbers.

By my count, there are 85 scholarship players if you include blueshirts, OL Hunter Brannon and kicker Joseph Bulovas, but omitting grayshirt Jarez Parks and walk-ons Jamey Mosley, Levi Wallace, and Andy Pappanastos. Mosley and Wallace have earned scholarships in the past but only on a semester basis. Pappanastos may have as well but it is unclear.

ONE SHIRT, TWO SHIRT, GRAYSHIRT, BLUESHIRT

For a refresher on grayshirts, blueshirts, et al, read this explanation. Multiple sources seem to interpret that blueshirts are not eligible to play their first season but I believe that is not accurate. The best explanation comes from a Southern Cal Fansided site of all places:

They are eligible to both enroll and play during the initial fall semester following their high school graduation or junior college transfer, but are not counted as an incoming scholarship player until the following year’s recruiting class.

In order to count towards the next allotment of scholarships, blueshirts begin as walk-ons and are not brought on scholarship until after the first day of fall camp.

In short, they are not yet on scholarship but will be in the fall as long as the total number is 85. Their signings will count towards the 2018 class. Parks too will count towards 2018 (meaning only 22 signees for this next class), but he cannot enroll until January 2018. There is a possibility that he could blueshirt as well if the Tide loses one more scholarship player before Fall. This scenario actually occurred to starting center Bradley Bozeman. He was initially asked to grayshirt but when someone left the program, he was bumped up to the fall enrollment.

NUMBERS

Below is the 115 man roster from Rolltide.com with my count in the right column.

EXCHANGING DIGITS

A few jersey number changes to report:

• DB Jared Mayden moves from 8 to 21.
• RB Josh Jacobs spurns 25 for the newly available 8.
• Johnny Dwight passes on 36 for the more DL-appropriate 95.