The offer was there. Several other schools were talking to the prospect.
Then, the NCAA Transfer Portal opened its floodgates through 20 days in December.
Another new record: more than 11,000 NCAA football players entered their names into the Portal late last year.
Rick Feinberg, a former FBS player who's owned and operated Charleston Speed Academy for more than a decade, thought his son had secured a scholarship in the 2025 cycle.
Instead, a head coach was fired. Late in the cycle, everything changed.
Today, options include potentially reclassifying to the 2026 class and essentially hitting restart on the recruiting process.
"What we're hearing is that not a lot of schools are going down to (NCAA) Division II or really even FCS and getting quarterbacks," Feinberg told FootballScoop.
A longtime coaching agent whose client list boasts more than 20 NFL assistants, Warren McCarty also coaches and trains athletes in the Denver suburbs.
His son, Blitz, is a three-star prospect per the 247Sports Composite in the 2026 class. Presently, his recruiting profile shows three FBS offers.
The reality?
"We had an FBS coach tell us he really liked his film, thought he was a high Group of Five prospect," McCarty said.
But?
"But," McCarty added, "he said he didn't even know if he would sign a quarterback in the '26 class because they might already be one quarterback over."
That's because the 105-man scholarship roster is closer to reality. It's leaving programs everywhere either confronting now or delaying the inevitably difficult conversations with walk-ons.
Feinberg and McCarty are living that experience right now with their families, and they share the latest in this FootballScoop Podcast that continues last week's discussion on the Portal impacts against high school recruiting.
The roster limits are set to coincide with the finalization of the House Settlement, which is expected to be formally confirmed April 7 in federal court.
But McCarty knows that all these schools opting into the agreement -- some to various levels from full participation in up to $20.5 million revenue sharing to lesser percentages -- are sometimes doing so for, well, the optics.
"We don't have 40 (programs) out of 130 FBS programs making money," McCarty said. "There's 80-some that are losing money. And some of them are losing their ass."
What, then, could be done to help preserve high school recruiting? Sure, there are established, stable programs that are still primarily filling their rosters with high school students and supplementing their rosters in the Portal.
There are also the Colorados, Texas Techs, Purdues, Texas A&Ms and more bringing in 40% or more of their signing classes via the Portal.
"There's a committee for the Playoffs with a lot of smart men and women on it," Feinberg said. "I think they should form a committee to address this and talk about real-life problems."
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