End of Walk-ons Coming Soon?

It is fun for walk ons to get to be a part of the team, and a few play sure, but as the stats show most never see the field.  IMO, cutting most walk-ons won't make a bit of difference to the quality football on the field.  If this leads to player contracts and stops the transfer portal nonsense, I am all for it. 

 
Huskerfollower4life said:
If they do change the roster size doesn't that force kids to grow up faster and try to be more prepared going into college?  Someone stated that college football is a development league earlier and I agree but if they do change the roster size then it forces kids to grow up faster at a accelerated rate.  We gave you a scholarship so we expect that you produce instead of well give you a scholarship your not ready quite yet and in a year or two we will see where you are at.  Me personally I feel like 85 is to low bc injuries and having depth but I do understand why others don't mind that number.
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Ummmm....so you're expecting a 17 year old kid to be able to decide to have his body mature enough to put on muscle and weight enough to be ready to play Div 1 football when he steps on campus?  Gosh...I didn't know I could decide in HS when my body was going to mature.

Also, that doesn't even start to think about how many HS kids don't have access to weight programs and nutritional programs they get when they come to Lincoln.

 
BigRedBuster said:
Ummmm....so you're expecting a 17 year old kid to be able to decide to have his body mature enough to put on muscle and weight enough to be ready to play Div 1 football when he steps on campus?  Gosh...I didn't know I could decide in HS when my body was going to mature.

Also, that doesn't even start to think about how many HS kids don't have access to weight programs and nutritional programs they get when they come to Lincoln.
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Im not expecting anything from a highschool kid. Im saying by downgrading your roster it forces kids to grow up faster that's all.  I'm for kids to be kids and not to grow up faster.  College football is turning into pro football bc of money.

 
I guess I'm curious how much it costs a school for each walk-on.  It doesn't cost any more for coaching.  The weightroom is already there.  Same with the locker room & practice facilities.  if a walk-on makes the travel team it doesn't cost any more because the team is traveling anyway.  As far as I can tell, the only cost is food at the training table (if they get that for free like the kids on scholarships).

I know there is a Title IX issue, but schools get around that by having a ton of women on various other teams.  Wisconsin had around 100 women on the rowing team a few years ago & there is no way they were all on scholarship (there's only 20 total allowed).

 
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ECisGod said:
As far as I can tell, the only cost is food at the training table (if they get that for free like the kids on scholarships).
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Off the top of my head (and I am sure there are more)

Training table (I would imagine slashing 30% of our food/nutrition budget would be a lot, plus you could probably downsize the kitchen staff)

Equipment (football pads ain't cheap)

Medical costs (the walk-on isn't paying for his torn ACL in practice out of his own pocket)

Support staff (for example 30% less kids may mean a few less tutors)

 
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Huskerfollower4life said:
Im not expecting anything from a highschool kid. Im saying by downgrading your roster it forces kids to grow up faster that's all.  I'm for kids to be kids and not to grow up faster.  College football is turning into pro football bc of money.
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You're talking about mental maturity.  I'm talking about physical maturity.  Some kids just flat can't be playing ready when they hit campus.  Take an offensive lineman.  Lots of times it takes a couple years in the S&C program to truly get big and strong enough to actually play and be decent.  Look at our commitment from the German we received recently.  They are looking at him for OT.  There is absolutely NO WAY he could be ready by season to actually play.  If we are cut to only being able to have 85 players on the team, this kid doesn't even sniff an offer.

 
Red Five said:
Off the top of my head (and I am sure there are more)

Training table (I would imagine slashing 30% of our food/nutrition budget would be a lot, plus you could probably downsize the kitchen staff)

Equipment (football pads ain't cheap)

Medical costs (the walk-on isn't paying for his torn ACL in practice out of his own pocket)

Support staff (for example 30% less kids may mean a few less tutors)
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Thanks!

You'd hope that most of the walk-ons don't need tutors. One of the reasons they are there is to help the teams GPA, so needing a tutor kind of defeats the purpose.

Do schools pay for pads/helmets or do they get them for "free" (I know they get shoes, balls, uniforms, etc.) as part of their licensing agreements?

 
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Mavric said:
Yes, I understand that.  But schools don't have to have a mandate to do that.  They can manage to whatever level they think is appropriate for them.
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This, if Alabama doesn't want 50 walk-ons, the AD can tell the coach "Hey, limit your walk-ons to 25 because we don't want to pay that many players that are just tackle dummies at practice" 

I can also see where schools will have "practice players", I know a lot of women's sports will have male students come and be practice players and be basically the scout team. They get very minimal gear, and that's about it. I can see schools reduce the walk-on title from football and basketball, convert the reduced walk-on numbers to practice players who won't and can't suit up for the team and not have to pay them through the House settlement, with the promise of if you impress us as a practice player, you can potentially become a walk-on, same concept as a walk-on becoming a scholarship player.  I can also see schools reclassifying funds to reduce the amount that they will have to distribute to the players and continue to let NIL be the primary source of income for the players. 

 
Decked said:
They may need the walk-on program but it’s more of a state pride than on field results thing at this point. 
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Disagree, how MR runs practices having a large roster allows them to give everyone significantly more reps than they would otherwise get. MR has been very vocal about how important practice is to his model and how their current structure and large roster size is key to developing the roster overall. A roster limit will impair what MR has built for a practice methodology at DONU.

 
Decked said:
They may need the walk-on program but it’s more of a state pride than on field results thing at this point. 
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Completely agree. 

caveman99 said:
Disagree, how MR runs practices having a large roster allows them to give everyone significantly more reps than they would otherwise get. MR has been very vocal about how important practice is to his model and how their current structure and large roster size is key to developing the roster overall. A roster limit will impair what MR has built for a practice methodology at DONU.
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Every coach says this. Scott Frost worked with Bill Moos to increase the roster size (and they worked with school Admin so players schedules were open for practice during certain times of the day). They all think they have the secret sauce to develop under the radar players and turn them into contributers. 

The reality is that talent consolidation is a massive issue in college football. Nebraska trying to compete in a world where Ohio State or Georgia can have unlimited rosters is not good for them. Success is predicated on talent acquisition, and trying to manufacture talent via a massive walk on program probably won't work.

I think it's great that Matt Rhule is confident in his ability to "develop", but Nebraska's win/loss total is likely to be unaffected by changes to the walk on program.

 
Dr. Strangelove said:
Completely agree. 

Every coach says this. Scott Frost worked with Bill Moos to increase the roster size (and they worked with school Admin so players schedules were open for practice during certain times of the day). They all think they have the secret sauce to develop under the radar players and turn them into contributers. 

The reality is that talent consolidation is a massive issue in college football. Nebraska trying to compete in a world where Ohio State or Georgia can have unlimited rosters is not good for them. Success is predicated on talent acquisition, and trying to manufacture talent via a massive walk on program probably won't work.

I think it's great that Matt Rhule is confident in his ability to "develop", but Nebraska's win/loss total is likely to be unaffected by changes to the walk on program.
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I know other coaches have said similar things, but I honestly think MR is getting as much out of having an unlimited roster as anyone in the country. Unique things MR and Co are doing like the Spring League aren’t possible without a large roster size. They literally had 3 separate full teams competing against each other, which created increased reps for everyone. They have brought in 4 players just over the past 2 weeks, including potentially the backup QB and a solid K to push Alvano. Maybe these adds don’t add to the top level talent, but they add to the overall depth and with the way MR runs practices, it allows for greater competition due to the ability to give more reps. 

 
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caveman99 said:
I know other coaches have said similar things, but I honestly think MR is getting as much out of having an unlimited roster as anyone in the country. Unique things MR and Co are doing like the Spring League aren’t possible without a large roster size. They literally had 3 separate full teams competing against each other, which created increased reps for everyone. They have brought in 4 players just over the past 2 weeks, including potentially the backup QB and a solid K to push Alvano. Maybe these adds don’t add to the top level talent, but they add to the overall depth and with the way MR runs practices, it allows for greater competition due to the ability to give more reps. 
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I think that's fair, and will address issues of the Nebraska Football program over the last decade, which is that coaches really favored the top 25 players on the roster - to the point of playing a slot receiver at RB - causing the drop off to the backups after injury to be immense. 

This will help Nebraska get better and get to the level of peer programs like Minnesota, Iowa or Kentucky for example. But if Nebraska if the expectations for Nebraska Football are to reach the 14 team CFB and potential win a game in it, they need a serious upgrade in talent. They need to recruit 10 or more 4* players every year as a baseline in addition to having a massive roster to find even more talent. It's going to be hard but it's doable.

 
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