I took over a new team in a new world (Piedmont in Tark) with 7 openings.  At the end of recruiting, I had signed 4 and was out of money.  No big deal I figured, 3 walkons, I'd see if the penalty for growth with more than 2 walk ons was that bad.

Recruiting finishes and I go to set lineups and see that I have 2 walk ons and some player I had never recruited or seen showing as signed by me.  I sent in a ticket and got the reply that "This player was signed by the assistant coach and that's why he's not a walk on player.  He cannot be changed to a walk on player."

So a couple of questions:
1.  Has anyone else ever had a player signed by the assistant coach?
2.  Has anyone else had 3+ walk ons in the last month or so?

He's not an atrocious player, much better than the walk ons.  Not sure if I'll keep him on the roster, but tough to cut a player you sign your first year at a job.  My assumption had always been whatever roster spots left open are filled by walk ons, maybe I was wrong.

ETA: In regards to the 6 players per class rule:  I signed 4 freshmen, the 2 walkons were freshmen and the mystery 7th player is also a freshmen.

I think that first year thing is part of it but I'm not sure. I think its a function to make sure that the team as a certain number of non walk-ons in that first year in case the coach is a no show or something like that, although if that's really true, I'd think it should work that if the new human does sign anyone then the assistants keep hands off...

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's the first year thing. My brother signed five in his first class, leaving room for one walk-on, and the Sim signed a sixth player for him. Fortunately for him, the sim-recruited player turned out to be a pretty good player that had been overlooked due to 18 WE. 

As I recall, the only way to prevent this is by having less than $100 in your account when you finish recruiting. 

Huh.  thanks guys, never thought of a first year tweak like that.  Like I said, the kid isn't bad, I don't look at him and immediately want to cut him, but just seemed odd to me.  

As for the 6 players per class rule, it is 6 scholarship players per class... walk-ons do not count for that limitation.

Having less then a $100 and also no more scholies left out to other guys you might have issued one to early in recruiting. This happened to me once i had a scholie left out to a d2 guy i was looking at to bring down to d3 , the assistant signed him late in the period. My AD almost gave my assistant a lifetime extension and canned me.

No, this was a totally out of the blue kid.  I'm in GA playing D3 and the mystery player was in Alaska, no calls to his coach, no activity at all.  Interesting that there's a thing for first year coaches like that, I would guess it carries over from all of the free seasons given out back in the day.

Glad your AD kept you pirates :)