Here are your official numbers: 23 players in the signing class and 71 on campus for spring football. I can’t find this to be sure, and the specifics don’t matter as much as the reality of the situation as it was back then, but I want to say when WVU went to the Orange Bowl at the end of Dana Holgorsen’s first season the team had 64 players on scholarship. That’s one above the scholarship limit … at the FCS level. It’s 21 below the FBS limit.

Five of the 71 (quarterbacks David Sills and Chris Chugunov, offensive lineman Kyle Bosch, prospective tight end/fullback Michael Ferns and defensive end Larry Jefferson) are already on campus. We knew that before, when we painstakingly presumed the 71 number was actually 73.

So already we can assume some decisions among returning players have been made and coaches know a few players have already decided to finish this semester and either graduate early or transfer.

Let’s now proceed with 71 as the number. Let’s subtract the five on campus from the 23 in the recruiting class and add the 18 to the 71. The Mountaineers have plans for 89 scholarships. I’d call that healthy. Put it this way: You’d rather have 89 today than 81. Getting down to 85 will not be hard, and staying up at 85 might be harder.

Some of the 18 aren’t going to make it, and though Holgorsen said Wednesday the Mountaineers “wouldn’t take guys that we think would have eligibility problems,” it’s just about inevitable that one or more won’t make it. That’s the deal everywhere, and Dana more or less alluded to that when he said his coaches could be selective, which is to say take some calculated risks, because of wiggle room around 85.

(That quote, by the way, was in response to a question about Jovon Durante and Tyrek Cole, two players from the Miramar pipeline that had more players commit and sign elsewhere than commit and stick, two players who, to say the least, are implicated in something messy back home and as such cannot be considered locks. Sorry! And let’s not seal off the pipeline, either. Not a great year for the Patriots by their lofty standards, though Durante and Cole are the best of the bunch. How it gets going again with a new coach from the powerhouse Booker T. Washington staff and what he plans to do on offense will be interesting. That said, Pierre Senatus, who is quite popular among college staffs down south, is a big fan of former WVU and Miramar defensive lineman Josh Talyor, who remained on the Patriots staff.)

As for the other number: Three. The Mountaineers still have three defensive line coaches, but only in name. That’s going to change, and it probably already has. The winter season, so to speak, starts Monday and you can assume that’s when the changes will go into effect. Holgorsen said he’ll disclose everything in a few weeks — he and his assistants need time to catch their breath and get their feet back beneath them — but he also said “there are not a lot of major things happening.” What’s that mean? I don’t know, and I have to think that was part of Dana’s plan in letting six assistant coaches speak to the media while Bruce Tall, Damon Cogdell and Tom Bradley did not. (That’s important if you remember Keith Patterson’s absence from last season’s signing day media gathering.) Seems clear to me WVU didn’t want that story, whatever it may be, to be a story on signing day.

I saw Tall yesterday. Cogdell was on WVU’s signing day show. Tall was, too, but Bradley was not. I never saw Bradley, so I can’t swear to all of this, but I was told he was in the building when the media was at Dana’s presser and then at a signing day celebration in the evening. Do with that what you wish, but by the looks and sounds of it, it seems like for now at least that each is on board for next fall.