Depth Chart for Fresno State

I think walk ons have always been a very important part of the team for several reasons (except Callahan who dumped the entire idea).

1. Walk ons tend to be local Nebraska guys who live the dream of being a Husker and play with all the heart and effort a coach can dream of.

2. Being disproportionately Nebraska guys, these walk ons are all but ignored by the national recruiting types so they are not heavily sought after and Nebraska gets an edge in getting what may well be solid 3 or even 4 star types.

3. Many walk ons don't make so the feeling is that if 30% of the walk ons become contributors, that is somehow a great success rate. Arguably the program ought to look at taking 50 walkons each year and awarding 5 schoarships to the top five and letting the bottom 20 move on. Repeat as necessary. Maybe that is effectively what we do now.

4. There has been a certain element of pride in being a walk on and then 'making it' - sort of a chip on the shoulder attitude of 'I'll prove the experts wrong and show em!"

 
I never have understood people hating on walkons. We have had a number of very good walkons come in and help us be successful or even be some of our best players. The walkon program is doing what it's supposed to do. Develop players that didn't get a scholarship from the beginning and make then contributing players for the program. If scholarship players aren't beating them out, it might just be because the walkon worked harder and is actually that good.

 
knapplc said:
Here's a better version of that:

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The one thing I do not like about the depth chart above is the offensive/defensive starts on both of the lines. Very scary! The coaches certainly have their work cut out for them this season.

 
BigRedBuster said:
I never have understood people hating on walkons. We have had a number of very good walkons come in and help us be successful or even be some of our best players. The walkon program is doing what it's supposed to do. Develop players that didn't get a scholarship from the beginning and make then contributing players for the program. If scholarship players aren't beating them out, it might just be because the walkon worked harder and is actually that good.
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I believe the issue, though I'm sure you realize this, is that walk-ons weren't good enough to earn a scholarship on paper, therefore the mindset surrounding them is that they're probably not as talented.

Like a lot of things, there are two sides to this coin. Obviously, you want your scholarship players to pan out so you don't have to rely on walk-ons and feel like you "wasted" the scholarship, but walk-ons have proven themselves to be incredibly valuable players at Nebraska and have even gone on to become All-Americans/successful NFL players.

I think it'd be really interesting to compare walk-on success for the last 10 years, to the previous 11-20 years, to the previous 21-30 years. Compare accolades, awards, draft picks, etc.

 
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Enhance89 said:
BigRedBuster said:
I never have understood people hating on walkons. We have had a number of very good walkons come in and help us be successful or even be some of our best players. The walkon program is doing what it's supposed to do. Develop players that didn't get a scholarship from the beginning and make then contributing players for the program. If scholarship players aren't beating them out, it might just be because the walkon worked harder and is actually that good.
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I believe the issue, though I'm sure you realize this, is that walk-ons weren't good enough to earn a scholarship on paper, therefore the mindset surrounding them is that they're probably not as talented.

Like a lot of things, there are two sides to this coin. Obviously, you want your scholarship players to pan out so you don't have to rely on walk-ons and feel like you "wasted" the scholarship, but walk-ons have proven themselves to be incredibly valuable players at Nebraska and have even gone on to become All-Americans/successful NFL players.

I think it'd be really interesting to compare walk-on success for the last 10 years, to the previous 11-20 years, to the previous 21-30 years. Compare accolades, awards, draft picks, etc.
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My point is, I believe people who get upset simply because they see walkons on the depth chart are not seeing the big picture. They simply see "walkon" and assume this kid sucks and a scholarship player should be in his place and the reason they aren't is because the coaches suck.

There are many many reasons why a walkon could be on the depth chart. For instance, let's take the Guard position. We had two potentially pretty good scholarship players go down with injury. So....a walkon is starting this first game. How the hell is that an indictment on the coaching staff? Three walkon fullbacks??? That's a bad thing? The best fullbacks in our history were walkons and historically we have filled this position with walkons.

Three walkons are in the WR group. This is widely talked about as our best and deepest group but yet we have three walkons??? That's a problem???? BS.

 
Has McKewon expanded on his pointing out of walk-ons?

All of the specialists are starters, I hope we're not wasting scholarships on backup LS, K, P. Nothing wrong with walk-on fullbacks, kind of has been the history of that position. Foster would be ahead of Hahn. The previous staff didn't recruit OL and LBs well, and DL had a perfect storm of attrition - 4 players moving on before final year and one A.Moss getting kicked out of school. Riley converted Freedom to DE from TE, we know what Carter can do, and have heard Sam Cotton is coming into his own too.

Definitely would prefer seeing scholarship guys over walk-ons, but some are late bloomers and mostly they're incredible workhorses to earn PT as a walk-on, but yeah, as someone said above sounds like a tweet from McKewon creating a bigger deal than it is.

The experience on both sides of the Line is scary, but shoot, the future looks bright (like I haven't thought that before though)

 
ColoradoHusk said:
Thanks_Tom RR said:
NUinID said:
ColoradoHusk said:
It looks like a lot of people here don't like Sam McKewon, but here are his thoughts on the depth chart.

http://www.omaha.com/huskers/blogs/sam-mckewon-s-takes-on-the-husker-depth-chart/article_e2f0f422-6e1e-11e6-97bf-83d2de3f0f7a.html
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His thoughts on the depth chart are fine, all he is trying to do with tweeting out that pictures of the depth chart is stir a pot.
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I look at all of the walk-on talent as a positive.
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Depending on the walk-on program to fill a large number of holes in the depth chart is an indictment on the program's abilities to recruit and develop talent.
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Recruiting? Maybe (though it is clear Nebraska has to recruit their walk-on talent now given the successful FCS teams in the region). Development? No. Most of the walk-ons in the depth chart are upper classmen, meaning they have had time in the program and most likely received that development term you are using to disparage the coaching staff. Fact is most of our walk-on talent is filling in at WR and OL (two position groups prone to injury, so added depth is a positive) as well as FB and special teams (two groups you don't normally see scholarships given for, though this staff has bucked that trend over the last two years).

 
Since we are comparing talent between this years team and the 97 team. Does anybody else think that Armstrong would have been a all American caliber player in that offense? My vote is yes.

 
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