Scholies vs. Walkons - The real story

[GBRedneck]

No.... I'm saying Wisconsin will play walkons ahead of scholarship athletes when they're up by 58 points. I'd bet every dollar I earn for the rest of my life that's true, no matter what statistic you throw at it.

So if you're a scholarship athlete AND a starter, you get to play. But if you're not a starter, the walkons play first???

Dude, that doesn't even make sense.

You're misinterpreting my post. I'm saying that when a team is up by 58 points, they're going to send in the walk-ons. When a team is in OT, they're not (or shouldn't, but hey).

But it has nothing to do with walkons. When a game is close, you play the 1s and 2s. When it starts getting out of hand, you start playing the 3s and 4s. Even in the blowout with 64 players seeing the field, Wisconsin didn't play many 4s.

You made it sound like they would play backup walkons before backup scholies.

 

[GBRedneck]

No.... I'm saying Wisconsin will play walkons ahead of scholarship athletes when they're up by 58 points. I'd bet every dollar I earn for the rest of my life that's true, no matter what statistic you throw at it.

So if you're a scholarship athlete AND a starter, you get to play. But if you're not a starter, the walkons play first???
Dude, that doesn't even make sense.

The point he's making is you don't jeopardize an injury to a second string OT when you're up by 4+ scores. That's the time where you put in the walk ons.

No, that's when you put in the 3rd stringer, regardless of scholie or walkon.

 

[knapplc]

For a more apples-to-apples comparison, I checked the participation report for the Wisconsin / Alabama game.

Wiscy used 50 players against Alabama. Of those, 12 were walk-ons. Three of those started.

That list:

Offense
Pos ## Offense
QB 2 Stave,Joel - Walkon
RB 6 Clement,Corey
FB 34 Watt,Derek
WR 86 Erickson,Alex - Walkon
WR 15 Wheelwright,Ro
TE 46 Traylor,Austin
LT 61 Marz,Tyler
LG 63 Deiter,Michael
C 70 Voltz,Dan
RG 62 Williams,Walke
RT 74 Biegel,Hayden

Defense
Pos ## Defense
DE 95 Goldberg,A.
NT 94 Sheehy,Conor
DE 3A Obasih,Chikwe
OLB 47 Biegel,Vince
ILB 53 Edwards,T.J.
ILB 32 Jacobs,Leon
OLB 58 Schobert,Joe - Walkon
CB 5 Hillary,Darius
SS 7 Caputo,Michael
FS 19 Musso,Leo
CB 8 Shelton,Sojour

Other participants:
3-McEvoy,Tanner
9-Fredrick,Jordan
10-Gaglianone,R.
11-Peavy,Jazz,
12-Jamerson,N.
14-Dixon,D'Cota
16-Love,Reggie
23-Ogunbowale,Dar, - Walkon
24-Brookins,K.
25-Tindal,Derrick
28-Deal,Taiwan
29-Floyd,Terrance
36-Ferguson,Joe - Walkon
37-Endicott,Andre - Walkon
41-Hayes,Jesse
42-Watt,T.J.
43-Connelly,Ryan - Walkon
48-Cichy, Jack - Walkon
50-Orr, Chris
57-James,Alec
60-Udelhoven,Conn - Walkon
65-Sagapolu, Olive
75-Kapoi,Micah
76-Schmidt,Logan - Walkon
81-Fumagalli,Troy
90-Meyer,Drew - Walkon
91-Neuville,Z. - Walkon
93-Keefer,Jake

 

[GBRedneck]

Thanks, knapplc. That's almost identical to ours. 51/10 vs 50/12.

Do you happen to have a list of their entire travel roster for comparison? I'll do the analysis if you can find a list.

 

[knapplc]

I don't have Wiscy's travel roster. Here's the source for the participation report. Forgot to include the link in the above post. http://www.rolltide.com/sports/m-footbl/stats/2015-2016/01ua-wis.html#GAME.PRE

 

[StPaulHusker]

I just don't think that a third of your travel roster, whether they play or not, should consist of walk ons.

 

[StPaulHusker]

For a more apples-to-apples comparison, I checked the participation report for the Wisconsin / Alabama game.

Wiscy used 50 players against Alabama. Of those, 12 were walk-ons. Three of those started.

That list:

Offense

Pos ## Offense

QB 2 Stave,Joel - Walkon

RB 6 Clement,Corey

FB 34 Watt,Derek

WR 86 Erickson,Alex - Walkon

WR 15 Wheelwright,Ro

TE 46 Traylor,Austin

LT 61 Marz,Tyler

LG 63 Deiter,Michael

C 70 Voltz,Dan

RG 62 Williams,Walke

RT 74 Biegel,Hayden

Defense

Pos ## Defense

DE 95 Goldberg,A.

NT 94 Sheehy,Conor

DE 3A Obasih,Chikwe

OLB 47 Biegel,Vince

ILB 53 Edwards,T.J.

ILB 32 Jacobs,Leon

OLB 58 Schobert,Joe - Walkon

CB 5 Hillary,Darius

SS 7 Caputo,Michael

FS 19 Musso,Leo

CB 8 Shelton,Sojour

Other participants:

3-McEvoy,Tanner

9-Fredrick,Jordan

10-Gaglianone,R.

11-Peavy,Jazz,

12-Jamerson,N.

14-Dixon,D'Cota

16-Love,Reggie

23-Ogunbowale,Dar, - Walkon

24-Brookins,K.

25-Tindal,Derrick

28-Deal,Taiwan

29-Floyd,Terrance

36-Ferguson,Joe - Walkon

37-Endicott,Andre - Walkon

41-Hayes,Jesse

42-Watt,T.J.

43-Connelly,Ryan - Walkon

48-Cichy, Jack - Walkon

50-Orr, Chris

57-James,Alec

60-Udelhoven,Conn - Walkon

65-Sagapolu, Olive

75-Kapoi,Micah

76-Schmidt,Logan - Walkon

81-Fumagalli,Troy

90-Meyer,Drew - Walkon

91-Neuville,Z. - Walkon

93-Keefer,Jake

And the end result was that they lost. I wonder if talent had anything to do with it.

 

[Atbone95]

I'm pretty busy at work, but if you're doing the leg work on the stats - do you want to find how many walk-ons Alabama played? That'd be interesting to me. I'm being sincere, just curious.

 

[Kiyoat Husker]

Interesting metric. Good job on your research.

If I might make a suggestion, though. You may want to expand your investigation to other teams that are more of a recruiting peer to Nebraska.

I realize that Wisconsin football is similar to Nebraska in many ways, and represents where we want to get back to in terms of on-field success, but even with their success, we do and should out-recruit them. Penn State and Michigan State might be better B1G ten models for your study.

Here is an article from this year that shows 4-year average recruiting ranks:

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football-recruiting/2015/2/6/7987571/recruiting-rankings-ratings-2015-college-football-teams

from the article:

#2 Ohio State

#17 Michigan

#26 Penn State

#28 Michigan State

#29 Nebraska

(41) Big Ten Average

#43 Maryland

#44 Wisconsin

#48 Rutgers

#49 Indiana

#50 Northwestern

#52 Iowa

#56 Illinois

#60 Minnesota

#61 Purdue

 

[cg_8]

What the heck is going on here? Is it good or bad to have Walk Ons? I thought it was good, but now I'm hearing its bad?

Someone seriously needs to tell me what I need to believe from here on out about walk ons... Someone needs to provide me with my opinion...

 

[GBRedneck]

I'm pretty busy at work, but if you're doing the leg work on the stats - do you want to find how many walk-ons Alabama played? That'd be interesting to me. I'm being sincere, just curious.

I'll try to take a look later today. It does sound interesting. However, with Bama's recruiting practices and running off non-contributors to make room for new recruits, I doubt if we see similar numbers there. I'm certainly not an advocate of running off non-contributors so early.

 

[DrunkOffPunch]

No.... I'm saying Wisconsin will play walkons ahead of scholarship athletes when they're up by 58 points. I'd bet every dollar I earn for the rest of my life that's true, no matter what statistic you throw at it.

So if you're a scholarship athlete AND a starter, you get to play. But if you're not a starter, the walkons play first???
Dude, that doesn't even make sense.

The point he's making is you don't jeopardize an injury to a second string OT when you're up by 4+ scores. That's the time where you put in the walk ons.

No, that's when you put in the 3rd stringer, regardless of scholie or walkon.

I should've explained it better. The lower down the depth chart you get the higher the chances are of a player being a walk on. Also when you're up by that much it's not unlikely that they'll throw in a senior walk on for some snaps beings he probably won't be on the travel team and won't get any play time during the conference schedule.

 

[Enhance]

I just don't think that a third of your travel roster, whether they play or not, should consist of walk ons.

Think about this mathematically, though. For starters, senior scholarship classes are almost always smaller than freshman scholarship classes because of transfers, drop-outs, whatever. Now, typically, most freshman don't travel and don't make the travel roster. So, you're going to have an abundance of older scholarship athletes and then you're going to likely have walk-ons fill in the spaces.

This is purely an assumption, but, I don't think your concerns are as big of a deal as you're trying to make them be. I would wager, based on what we've been discussing here, a lot of teams trot anywhere from 5-10 walk-ons out for a game. Statistically, it just makes sense. Now, if you want to compare that to what Alabama does that's fine, but they're also the best recruiting team in the nation. A lot of teams aren't going to meet that standard.

 

[Red Five]

I also just compared starters from the two games.

Wisconsin started 3 former walkons on offense and 1 on defense.

Nebraska started 3 former walkons on offense and none on defense.

Jack Gangwish started game 1.

Chris Weber started game 2.

 

[teachercd]

What the heck is going on here? Is it good or bad to have Walk Ons? I thought it was good, but now I'm hearing its bad?

Someone seriously needs to tell me what I need to believe from here on out about walk ons... Someone needs to provide me with my opinion...

It is good...if they are Jared Tomich...it is bad if they are anyone else...It is extra special if they are from Nebraska...but it is okay if good Nebraska scholarship players go to other places...unless it was during Bo's time...then it is bad...

I think that clears it up! haha