The scholarship numbers game

Welcome to Signing Day, a veritable holiday and a half in some parts of the country.

Not so much inside the Beltway, where Georgetown's date with South Florida will probably spawn as much attention as Maryland's football recruiting class.

Nonetheless, it permits the opportunity to play a fun game involving scholarship math.

By my unofficial count, Maryland has 67 scholarships tied up in players held over from last season. The Terps left a couple scholarships on the table in 2009, had 12 seniors, saw Bruce Campbell depart early for the NFL, won't have to account for Tyler Bowen because of medical reasons and had a couple other guys who played sparingly expected to depart.

So that leaves 18 scholarships available. And there's a 21-man class committed.

Which means the scholarship math is going to be pretty easy this year --- almost to the point it won't be worth tracking a whole lot.

If one guy transfers, one guy preps (or maybe grayshirts) and one guy flunks out --- things that, like it or not, routinely happen in college football, not just in College Park.

Last year, seven players --- Dion Armstrong, Joe Faiella, Lorne Goree, Dominique Herald, Bearthur Johnson, David Mackall and Josh Portis --- fit into one of those categories.

So chances are, counting scholarships isn't going to be necessary for the Terps. This one looks like it will solve itself in some way or another before August rolls around.