The NCAA has a rule that walk-ons can’t play football on an academic scholarship unless they were completely unrecruited, a la Kikko Haydar in hoops. Rationale was to prevent schools from giving unlimited academic money to get around recruiting limits.
Which brings me to Donovan Whitten, the QB/LB from Arkadelphia who got the PWO: Arkadelphia is one of the towns where they fund a scholarship to any high school graduate who attends a school in-state, either public or private (El Dorado also does that; there may be others). But it’s not linked to which school you attend; Whitten could go to UA or Ouachita or Henderson and still get the Arkadelphia Promise scholarship.
So if he got that scholarship which is not tied to UA (thus UA not using it to evade the 85 limit), could he play?