This is the number for what we should always be wanting to retain from a previous roster and take into the next cycle- 40 or so you want to actively keep around headed into the the new roster cycle
High School recruiting:
Every year- Elite tackle, WR, Edge, CB, RB, Safety
Every other year- Elite QB, TE, Guard, LB
You should always sign 25 or 30. This would have you paying top dollar for 8 or so guys every year. The other 16-22 should be 3 star or low 4 star development types that you hope to hit on like 3 or 4 keepers and contributors per cycle and tell the other 12-20 to fuck off of or hang around and play for free.
If you do that, then every year you should expect to be able to get by from the portal with 3 or so elite day 1 or 2 NFL talents to fill in where you busted and 7-10 rotational guys around the quality of the Purdue DT, or Spence from Arkansas. Guys that can play a role and add depth, but don't need to come in and be awesome they need to smooth out the rough edges of your roster.
If they did this it should be a roster of 45 or 50 guys ready to play at all times with 10+ draft picks per cycle. That seems doable for 30M-40M a year on roster spend which is what I’d expect our number to be going forward.
You need to enforce a development curve and don’t fuck around with sentimentality. I like telling Baxter and Moore to GTFO as a sign of that happening.
We are in MLB territory now with windows, stars and scrubs and you hope you develop the “scrubs” enough to take 16 cracks at it a year and have them fill out 3-5 productive roster spots, while your stars play like stars and you tell them to GTFO if they don't