The NCAA's new "five-for-five" eligibility rule was pitched as a win for student-athletes. In practice, it's a mechanism for college programs to stockpile experienced bodies while slamming the door on high school recruits — and Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian just said the quiet part out loud.

Speaking at the Texas High School Coaching Association convention, Sarkisian warned of "a little bit of a lull in high school recruiting that's coming," as Rivals reported. "Now there's players that are going to have an extra year to stay in college football that are going to transfer around or stay at their universities. That is going to impact some of the high school recruiting."

Translation: college rosters are about to get older and more crowded, and the teenagers coming out of high school are the ones who'll get crowded out. The old four-in-five model forced programs to cycle in new blood. Five-for-five lets them hoard. The scholarship — a piece of controlled currency worth six figures — stays in the hands of the institution longer.

Sarkisian also acknowledged the weight now pressing down on these kids. "I really believe from the morale of these young players and these kids, they feel the burden of taking care of their household because of the money and the ages and all these things," he said, per Sports Illustrated. He called the overall change "positive" but conceded the real damage won't show for a couple of years. By then, the coaches who lobbied for this will have already cashed in.

Follow the money: the NCAA and its member institutions built a system where NIL dollars flow through school-controlled collectives, transfer portals concentrate talent at powerhouse programs, and now eligibility rules ensure that talent stays on campus longer. The Cincinnati Enquirer's preview of top high school offensive linemen reads like a catalog of kids competing for fewer and fewer spots — players like Moeller's Kal-El Johnson, ranked 14th in Ohio and committed to Georgia Tech, or Winton Woods' Lual Aleu, a Missouri commit ranked 41st. These are the young men who will find the doorway narrowing.

Meanwhile, the programs already loaded are sitting pretty. Cleveland.com reports that Ohio State's offensive line room is so deep that experienced players sit at spots seven and eight. "Every single starter for the next 24 months for Ohio State is already on the roster," analyst Stephen Means said on Buckeye Talk. That's the five-for-five world in miniature: no need to recruit when you can just retain.

But depth doesn't equal performance. Andrew Gillis cut through the optimism with the line that haunts Ryan Day's tenure: "Ohio State under Ryan Day just can't figure out offensive line." The individual talent is first-round quality. The collective keeps collapsing at the worst moments. Means put it plainly: "The collection is never as good as the sum of the parts." The Texas game on September 12 will be the next referendum.

The institutional pattern is clear: rules change to benefit the institutions, the people running them face zero accountability when results don't match the hype, and the kids on the outside looking in are told to wait their turn. Sarkisian deserves credit for naming the problem. Naming it and fixing it are different jobs.