Do we have too many walkons playing?

NebraskaShellback said:
Our tradition is having the walk ons come here who are local kids and surrounding areas. We have won championships with the walk ons in the line up. The f*cking star power by recruits names don't mean Jack Sh*t.
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Nice emotional response.

And I actually disagree with the star power. It's not and end all be all. Its an athletic guideline. Those stars don't measure or signify someone's off the field actions or mentality.

Some times players are busts, sometimes they arent.

Some players are diamonds in the rough, sometimes they arent.

You can find multiple examples every year. It's not so black and white as you may think

 
FYI, no team since the early 90's (including nebraska) has ever won a national title without having at least two top-10 ranked recruiting classes within the last 4 years of that championship.

None, Zero, Zilch, Nada....

 
gdubs4nu said:
FYI, no team since the early 90's (including nebraska) has ever won a national title without having at least two top-10 ranked recruiting classes within the last 4 years of that championship.

None, Zero, Zilch, Nada....
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Come on!!! It's all about heart, passion, conditioning, and want-to!!!!

 
NUance said:
True2tRA said:
So again, instead of questiong the walk-ons who are out there and kicking a$$ or if we have "too many", I'm more worried about the three and four star guys we have out there that don't seem to put it all on the line, or the guys that aren't even getting out there at all that had those shiny stars beside their names in high school. Those are the guys that are the issue here.
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^^This. This is the crux of the problem right here. Too many recruiting whiffs and attrition over the past several years.
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Exactly.

The problem isn't that Nebraska's two-deep is 22% walk-ons. All other things being equal, you'd love to have walk-ons beating out legitimate scholarship athletes. Our walk-ons, by and large, "get" Nebraska football and work their asses off.

The problem is when those walk-ons aren't beating out a full complement of scholarship athletes, but filling roster holes because of a large amount of attrition.

  • 2011: Of 20 scholarship players signed, 11 are gone already gone. These would be RS Seniors.
  • 2012: Of 17 scholarship players signed, 7 are already gone. These would be Seniors & RS Juniors.
  • 2013: Of 25 scholarship players signed, 10 are already gone. These would be Juniors & RS Sophomores.
  • 2014: Of 24 scholarship players signed, 6 are already gone. These would be Sophomores & RS Freshmen.
  • 2015: Of 21 scholarship players signed, 1 is already gone. These are Freshmen.
These recruiting classes weren't the greatest to begin with, and in many cases it has not been the lesser-regarded players leaving early or never showing up to campus, but the more highly-regarded ones.

 
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NebraskaShellback said:
gdubs4nu said:
FYI, no team since the early 90's (including nebraska) has ever won a national title without having at least two top-10 ranked recruiting classes within the last 4 years of that championship.

None, Zero, Zilch, Nada....
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Sipple 2010 Osborne

http://journalstar.com/sports/columnists/sipple/steven-m-sipple-osborne-weighs-in-on-husker-recruiting/article_5e46d29f-37e4-5ccc-b9b5-ee96d440babc.html

It depends on who is ranking recruiting.
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Exactly, Bo did not leave much here for Riley to work with.

 
Coach Power'T said:
gdubs4nu said:
FYI, no team since the early 90's (including nebraska) has ever won a national title without having at least two top-10 ranked recruiting classes within the last 4 years of that championship.

None, Zero, Zilch, Nada....
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Who was the last to do it?
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BYU 84. Maybe NU in the 90's. Maybe Clemson 81. Basically, it never happens. Oregon, TCU, Baylor, MSU...would do it if they could win. But they won't win it, IMO.

 
We say "walk-on" around here as if it's some sort of defining label these guys wear. As if it means anything. It means that some recruiting service didn't find them and probably should have. If they're getting on the field here ahead of three and four star recruits, then somewhere somebody was wrong huh?
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The above is one of the best posts this season !





The scandal isn't that Weber is playing linebacker as a "walkon". The real scandal that he might not have ever gotten a decent chance because coaches and scouts had stars in their eyes and whiffed on his potential. Ohio State's starting quarterback was once third string, and probably would have remained so except of injuries to the two quarterbacks "better" than him.

Does anybody want to see Weber back on the bench so we don't have to play a walk on?

 
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Great article on "blue chip" recruits and its results. Can't really argue with the teams it lists at the top of getting the blue chip talent. Ironically, NU IN 2013-2014 was 3rd in the B1G with 30% of our players. Down 28% from the previous year. As many have argued, Bo and Co failed at developing anything. IMO, many digressed from their first play at NU to their last. Scroll down to view by conference. For full disclosure, OSU at a whopping 2%..... So much for the "wait until he gets better athletes" argument. At least for now. OR it bodes well, that he was even remotely competitive and knocked off some great teams with no talent on his roster.

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football-recruiting/2014/2/18/5312840/college-football-recruiting-teams-championships

Sobering to see our talent under Bo compared to other B1G teams and the poor results. That's coaching...

 
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Bowfin said:
We say "walk-on" around here as if it's some sort of defining label these guys wear. As if it means anything. It means that some recruiting service didn't find them and probably should have. If they're getting on the field here ahead of three and four star recruits, then somewhere somebody was wrong huh?
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One of the best posts this season!

The scandal isn't that Weber is playing linebacker as a "walkon". The real scandal that he might not have ever gotten a decent chance because coaches and scouts had stars in their eyes and whiffed on his potential. Ohio State's starting quarterback was once third string, and probably would have remained so except of injuries to the two quarterbacks "better" than him.

Does anybody want to see Weber back on the bench so we don't have to play a walk on?
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Lavonte David says hello. Not a walk on, but no injuries, dude never sees the field. Goes to the article about blue chip players. Bo got a decent share in the B1G, but did nothing with it.

 
ColoradoHusk said:
junior4949 said:
Can anyone find the data back in the mid-90's? I'm going to go out on a limb and say we were near the top back then when we were playing for and winning multiple NCs. It wasn't a problem back then. However, I do agree we are filling key roles that recruiting failed. Our last five classes ranked pretty high per rivals. One has to assume those that put us that high probably aren't on the team any longer though.
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I think you are honestly mistaken. NU fans have this grand idea that the walk-ons were the main reason that NU won championships in the 90's. Yes, they did contribute, but they weren't the main factor.
Of the players at that time, the big walk-ons were the Mackovickas. Jared Tomich is mentioned at being a former walk-on, but he was a recruited Prop 48 guy who couldn't be on scholarship his first year at NU. I can't remember if Brendan Holbein was a former walk-on. Other than those guys, I can't remember too many walk-ons being starters or in the two-deep.

Yes, there were a lot of Nebraskans in the starting line-up, but they weren't walk-ons. That was a period of time where there was a lot of talent in the state of Nebraska, and many of those guys were recruited by schools all over the country.
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Off the top of my head, Joel Wilks, Adam Treu, Hoskinson (i think), Scott Saltsman, Mike Fullman, all of our top 4 FBs on the 95 team, Jon vedral (i think), Holbein, there was a 2nd team Sam LB in 94 (wore 43 or 46), Turman of you want to count him. I'm thinking there was another WR or two,, and maybe another LB.
There were quite a few partial or non qualifiers, though.

Edit: I think that technically Tomich was too, even though he was also a Prop.

 
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Kernal said:
NUance said:
True2tRA said:
So again, instead of questiong the walk-ons who are out there and kicking a$$ or if we have "too many", I'm more worried about the three and four star guys we have out there that don't seem to put it all on the line, or the guys that aren't even getting out there at all that had those shiny stars beside their names in high school. Those are the guys that are the issue here.
Click to expand...
^^This. This is the crux of the problem right here. Too many recruiting whiffs and attrition over the past several years.
Click to expand...
Exactly.

The problem isn't that Nebraska's two-deep is 22% walk-ons. All other things being equal, you'd love to have walk-ons beating out legitimate scholarship athletes. Our walk-ons, by and large, "get" Nebraska football and work their asses off.

The problem is when those walk-ons aren't beating out a full complement of scholarship athletes, but filling roster holes because of a large amount of attrition.

  • 2011: Of 20 scholarship players signed, 11 are gone already gone. These would be RS Seniors.
  • 2012: Of 17 scholarship players signed, 7 are already gone. These would be Seniors & RS Juniors.
  • 2013: Of 25 scholarship players signed, 10 are already gone. These would be Juniors & RS Sophomores.
  • 2014: Of 24 scholarship players signed, 6 are already gone. These would be Sophomores & RS Freshmen.
  • 2015: Of 21 scholarship players signed, 1 is already gone. These are Freshmen.
These recruiting classes weren't the greatest to begin with, and in many cases it has not been the lesser-regarded players leaving early or never showing up to campus, but the more highly-regarded ones.
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Is there anyway to recompute the class rating/ranking to the recruiting classes of the players who are still here now? That is, what would the class rank be without the ones who are no longer with the team or are NOT in the three deep chart at least. Does anyone on the board know how the ratings or rankings are computed based on points, etc. If they could take the 5 most recent Husker classes and calculate what the original rating / points were less the players not on the depth chart now from each class.

I don't know how the figure all this but surely somebody on here does. Maybe it is a matter of taking the points total less the points awarded to each player signed.

I think a walk on class of say 15 guys ought to be counted as at least equal to 3 - 3.5 star rated players. In Nebraska's case, obviously our walk ons seem to be above the normal in talent as we are seeing more playing productivity. I would think maybe even value them as 4 3.5 star equivalents. ???? Anybody know how this might be done?

 
My comment on this is brief and simple. Would you rather have 12 walk-on players for 4 or 5 years or have 12 Juco players for 2 years?

Either way has been ridiculed and also glorified. Some schools can do both IE: K-State. Most can't do both or want to do both.

I say I would personally rather see 12 walk on players who have passion and desire to see the field. Those players often push your starters or prized recruits who think they are entitled. Thats what college sports is about.

 
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