The athletic department has the ability to fund up to the overall roster limit with a full scholarship There is no mandate forcing them to make all of those roster spots full scholarships, however. It used to be that a team had 10 scholarships (just to use a round number for a made up sport) and they could spread the full amount of that 10 however they saw fit. They could give 20 players half-scholarships. They could give 40 players quarter-scholarships. They could give 10 half scholarships and 5 full scholarships or anywhere in between. But now, whether you have a full scholarship, half, quarter, or zero dollars of a scholarship you count toward a roster limit. This does not eliminate walk-ons, but it certainly de-emphasizes them. But there are also cases where the total number of scholarships will likely overall be raised creating more opportunities overall, so it's a tricky issue. VT football can fully fund up to the full roster limit if they wanted. But then no one can be added beyond that point. What I bet will happen at most schools is they will have 3 limits: 1) the bare minimum of total scholarships available 2) the bare minimum of full scholarships given 3) the full roster limit 1, 2 and even 3 could all be the same number, but VT could decide to fully fund 90 scholarships, give 80 full scholarships and then split the final 10 scholarships between the rest of the players til the roster limit