The rules have changed so much in the last year that it is hard to tell what scholarships non-headcount sports will be splitting. My daughter’s coach had 9.9 scholarships to split (although she claimed she wasn’t fully funded). At the time, some students (really most because of the academic requirements to get into the school) could pair it with merit but not school issued need based aid. Now, athletes can receive need based aid too, so a coach can take those 9.9 scholarships and figure out which student athletes are eligible for need based aid and reassign the athletic aid to others on the team.
And a few kids could even get NIL money! That money could come from a local booster club, from a sporting goods store, from the local golf course or car dealership. I read that a football offensive line got a contract with a local pizza place, so an individual athlete doesn’t have to even be that good but the group could get a deal (and free pizza).
If the athletic money is important, the student may have to attend one of the schools you listed (my daughter played against several of them) and not hold out for Syracuse or Notre Dame. The D2 schools may not be the popular schools on CC but that doesn’t make them lesser schools, and some may be niche schools for engineering, theater, nursing, art. Recently, Colorado School of Mines (ranked #3 in the nation at the time) was playing South Dakota School of Mines in football, and our TV sportscaster commented “That’s a lot of brain power on the field at one time.”