Normally you're only allowed to have 85 players on scholarship and sign no more than 25 new schollies per year.

With all the seniors allowed to return, the NCAA didn't put any limit on the number of overall scholarship players a team can have - the 25 recruited player limit was the only limitation. But a lot of teams (including BYU) still stayed below 25 for the year due to 2 reasons.

1. The school financials only plan for so many football scholarships

2 (and the bigger reason). If you go way over this year because you can, then you have to make drastic cuts season (or just a miniscule recruiting class) to get back down to 85.

But those are self-imposed limitations to keep things ordered and increase stability. If the transfer is good enough and the only limitation is self-imposed, you change your plans