College baseball will soon drop 11.7 from its lexicon.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger this week that the sport will have a maximum scholarship number in the mid-30s, replacing the current system which divvies up 11.7 scholarships to a 40-man roster.

It’s a huge win for college baseball and a further gap between the haves and have nots, as most Power Four schools will max out scholarship numbers, while mid-majors struggle with just how many resources to put into the new system.

Ole Miss, thanks to my quick math and whatever knowledge of the Rebels’ NIL practices, currently have ~18-20 players with their full scholarship amounts covered thanks to the combination of partial scholarships and NIL payments. That’s essentially half the roster, while under this new plan, every player will be on full scholarship, and any NIL amount will be in addition to the scholarship coverage.

In short, baseball will now be like football and basketball – a head-count sport that doesn’t delve into percentages or complicated recruiting where the offers from schools are math problems as much as persuasive pitches.

To put a number on it, a full Ole Miss in-state scholarship is around $30,000 in value, and an out-of-state value is around $49,000.

These are all good things and should be celebrated. It’s a needed and notable change. It’s not the full story, though. It’s just the one that most media have concentrated on since the announcement, and the one coaches are comfortable talking about because it benefits the player.

Let’s not get it twisted: The proposed roster limit – most sources believe it’ll fall between 32-34 players, so down six to eight from the current number – isn’t large enough to handle the roster management and season load for programs.

It’s just the most palatable number that schools are willing to fund. The money was too much to get approval for 40 scholarships at enough schools, and even at this mid-30s number, there will be some institutions with prominent programs stop short of 100 percent buy-in.

Budgets are real things. I don’t blame schools who only do what they can, but between that and the smaller rosters, it’s more complicated than college baseball woke up this week and wanted to be a change agent.

This is about the House settlement, revenue sharing and what is being forced by the new reality of college athletics. There’s plenty of good. There’s an omelet that’s quite tasty, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few eggs broken on the floor.

D1Baseball pointed out that if the roster limit is 33, there will be 112 SEC players to find new homes. The ACC and Big 12 will each have 98 players who need new teams. It’ll trickle down from there.

You don’t have to feel sorry for coaches trying to figure out the roster. It’s their job, and they’ll survive, but it does create an instability with the MLB Draft on both sides of roster construction, and depending on injuries and other factors, many teams will have an available roster close to the upper 20s which isn’t suitable for a 56-game regular season.

Managing the portal and the potential draft defections with the hope of getting to 33 players seems like an impossible task at power programs. Football teams are frustrated about the lack of walk-ons in this new structure, but it’s even more pronounced in baseball.

Ole Miss, this past season, carried three injured pitchers – Hunter Elliott, Xavier Rivas and Taylor Rabe -- on its 40-man roster. The choices are to carry them or cut them, so the roster would be down to 30 in that scenario.

At least five other pitchers were unavailable at different points with minor arm flare ups. Add in a twisted ankle and a stomach virus, and you get the point.

Teams will construct rosters similarly to how Major League Baseball does it, but the pros have a 40-man roster it can pull from – 14 more than its active roster – and an entire Minor League system.

College teams will be down a few pitchers from what they would typically like to carry, and managing innings in intrasquads could be difficult at certain positions like catcher – a spot where there would likely be only two on a 33-man roster.

American Baseball Coaches Association executive director Craig Keilitz told Kendall Rogers he believes a 35-man roster is the sweet spot to settle on. Every extra one counts, so that’s better than 33 if it wins out.

The details aren’t yet decided, though they will be soon. More players are going to get scholarships, and that’s a great thing. It likely has an added effect with players going to college instead of pro at a higher rate, as well.

It’s progress and a net win. It’ll also change the roster environment and potentially make it more difficult to keep, develop and add players – an area that’s already separating success and failure in this new era of college baseball.

The scholarships are the main story, but they aren’t the whole story. There’s rain that comes with the rainbow.