Excellent question.

Mid-year enrollees (Adrian Martinez and company last year, Wandale Robinson and company this year) can be counted back to the previous season if — and only if — the previous year’s class did not reach the 25-man cap on initial qualifiers. Basically, schools are allowed to back-fill.

Nebraska’s Class of 2018 number ended up at 20. They were able to count several players from that group back to 2017 because Mike Riley’s last class was a small one. Then they added Tre Neal over the summer. Bottom line, they finished the 2018 cycle with 20. Thus, five of the eight mid-year enrollees who just joined the program this month can technically be counted back to 2018, filling that class to 25.

So, those five back-counted spots plus 25 initials for 2019 brings us to the maximum class size of 30. The process isn’t simple, but the number is. It’s hard and fast. Everybody counts.

That means four spots remaining for 2019. Sources have indicated that NU would like to keep one available to explore the transfer market later in the spring or over the summer because needs should crystallize after spring ball, injuries happen, so on and so forth.

That means the Huskers might only take three more players in the coming weeks. They can take no more than four.