it would be great if you always had an equal number of scholarships and did not have to account for missionaries, redshirts, gray shirts, AND medical redshirts. truth is, there was a point at which BYU was looking at having fewer than FIVE available scholarships to give in 2015! this had mostly to do with the change in missionary age. that is why:
A) there are only 76 scholarship players in camp right now instead of 85 as allowed. (the three med RS players do not count against the 85 limit), and
B) there was a dramatic increase in offers to JR college transfers who should ideally "cycle out" after 2013 and 2014. interestingly, because of his injury and subsequent RS, trenton trammell now will take up a spot that otherwise would have been available in 2015 bc he will still be on the roster.

so you cant really use a "rob peter to pay paul" economy with scholarships in the current BYU environment. it is not that simple.