Scholarship players can willingly give up their scholies. So if a player chooses to give up their scholie for equivalent NIL money, they are free to do so. That allows the program to stay within their limited number of scholies. It means there really is no true 85 scholie limit anymore. In Nebraska's case, the program will stay at the 85 scholie limit yet go into the fall with 95-100 scholarship-calibur players.
I've read that most coaches prefer to focus whatever NIL money they have available on their starters. But because Nebraska is one of the Big Dawgs when it comes to NIL, Coach Rhule has the luxury of strategically using some of our available money to take a page from the Osborne playbook. Tom built up depth far beyond most programs by bringing in and developing large numbers of walk-ons. Rhule is building the same kind of triple-digit depth that Tom once had (only with more talented players) using NIL.
