I am just starting a new save on this game having never played before. I'm taking over Mercer and trying to retool my roster. Am I able to rescind scholarships and sort of kick people off of my team for lack of a better word?

Yep, just go to your roster page, select the player you want to get rid of, and you'll find the option to kick the player at the top of the page, next to the red shirt button. Keep in mind though that you don't get to recruit transfers at the start of a new save, and your recruits won't come in until season 2, so if they might be useful in year one, it might be worth keeping some of those players for a while, at least if you think you can reload decently in the portal. Also, even 1 star players can contribute if they're upperclassmen who know your schemes really well.

Yea I'm trying to do some recruiting and am kind of lost haha. I'm not really sure if what I'm doing is effective or not. Not really sure how to sway these guys. Definitely going to be a learning curve I'm finding.