Agree to disagree.
The other aspect of the article is playing time. If a kid wants to play in college then he actually wants to see the field. That possibility gets diminished with the portal. Say a kid from JCA gets a scholarship to Illinois and expects to redshirt his freshman year, but then contend for playing time his sophomore year and beyond. Then in his Junior year Illinois decides to bring in a transfer from Akron to take playing time away from the JCA kid. The kid from JCA just wants to play ball so he transfers to NIU his Senior year and is a starter. In doing so he takes playing time away from a kid from LWE who had been at NIU for 3 years.
In your scenario, no opportunities were created or destroyed. The one kid wanted to play at Illinois. A transfer from Akron (or a former second stringer or a HS recruit) rises up and takes his spot. The kid who wanted to start at Illinois but gets beat out either stays at Illinois as a backup or competes for the starting spot at Akron.
The opportunity for the Akron transfer to play at Illinois left open an opportunity for someone else to start at Akron.
A guy like Nick Fedanzo from Montini/Illinois is probably a good comparison. Before the portal got crazy, he got an offer from Illinois out of Montini and took it. He has spent the last 5 years at Illinois first as a redshirt and then as a special teamer/depth piece at running back.
Back in 2018, Illinois offered and he accepted and chose to stay all 5 years. He could have transferred down to G5 or FCS and played more, but he chose to stay in the Big Ten. In 2024, he likely doesn't get a Big Ten offer because those last few scholarships in each class are no longer going to borderline HS recruits but instead to transfers. But then that kid who transferred from Ball State to Illinois to take what would have been a spot for Fedanzo in the past now leaves open a scholarship spot at Ball State.
So yes if we are talking about those coveted Big Ten and SEC offers, there are fewer of them for HS recruits because they are finding more seasoned kids who already have college experience to take a few of their scholarships each year. But kids languishing at the bottom of the Big Ten and SEC depth charts sometimes take the opposite approach of Fedanzo and transfer down, leaving an extra Big Ten/SEC scholarship. And just as importantly, a kid who was at Akron or Kent State and just tearing it up may now leave for the Big Ten, but now there is another MAC scholarship available.
College athletics is now worse for the free agency it has created. But no scholarships have been created or destroyed. They have just been made very fluid and rosters are much more transient now. That's it. A kid who thought he would be the last offer Northwestern made in the 2018 class likely probably has to settle for being in the middle of the Ball State class in 2024.
But it's the same 11,050 scholarships and same 2,860 starting sports for the roughly 130 FBS teams. Whose filling them just changes a lot from year to year.
The opportunity the HS tweener kid wanted to go to Northwestern may not be there. But now the guy stuck on Northwestern's fourth string can transfer down, the guy overplaying his MAC roster can transfer up, and the kids who got offered above where they likely should have as incoming freshmen in the past now may have to start a level of football or two below where they would have in the past. But that guy can still get to Northwestern. He may have to do it as a MAC starter for a year or two rather than a Northwestern backup, but the number of opportunities is still the same, just perhaps a bit delayed on a "prove it" approach.