Do we have too many walkons playing?

StPaulHusker said:
alexhortdog95 said:
BigRedBuster said:
Being a walk-on does NOT mean you suck and don't deserve to play. I honestly don't understand some fans attitude like that.
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Yeah, especially since there's walk-ons who have more heart than some schollie players.

Know this fella?

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Guess what - he was a walk on. So were Jordy Nelson and Clay Matthews. I think they panned out....

EDITED: Not much to say when a walk-on fullback has the longest running play from scrimmage this season....
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I know where you are going with this but JJ Watt was offered scholarships by Colorado, Northern Illinois and Minnesota as a TE. He went to Central Michigan on scholarship. He chose to walk on at Wisconsin to be closer to home after one year at CMU.
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And Clay Matthews turned down the scholarship and chose to walk-on at USC so they could use it for another player.

 
The stats don't lie. The "better" the players you recruit will more often than not transfer to better success in the games. UT probably being the glaring example of this not being true....

 
lo country said:
The stats don't lie. The "better" the players you recruit will more often than not transfer to better success in the games. UT probably being the glaring example of this not being true....
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A big part of their problem is lack of buy-in. We also have that problem just not nearly as bad.

 
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This is a good paragraph from the article.

That Spencer Long, Matt O'Hanlon and Andy Janovich played big minutes at Nebraska is not necessarily a criticism of Nebraska but more a compliment of those players' skills. This is also true of Dylan Utter, who has beaten several four-star prospects to win his job at guard. NU has 17 scholarship offensive linemen other than Utter. If he beats out all those guys, so be it. It's certainly not an indictment of talent at the position. The Huskers are stuffed with talent on the interior offensive line. And Reilly has been one of Nebraska's best athletes for two years. He could be the Huskers' best deep threat still.
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I has been said many times by older players that the walk-ons pushed the scholarship players to be better. Well, Utter is starting over some pretty highly recruited players. I have no problem with Utter starting and playing especially if these 4* guys aren't stepping up and passionately working to get on the field. Now, I don't know any of these guys so I don't know exactly what each player's work ethic is. However, if we have 17 scholarship players and Utter is the one starting, then I would say he is working his azz off to get it done.

 
BigRedBuster said:
This whole walk-on issue is frustrating and interesting at the same time. I am always amazed at some Husker fans who act like it's such a horrible thing that a Walk-on is doing well. When a walk-on is your leading tackler for the last two games....ummmm....it's not a problem that the walk-on is playing.

I have a friend who was a walk-on right around the Callahan-Bo transition. He ended up playing quite a bit until injuries cut his senior season short.

We were talking about Husker football one night over a few beers and he brought up something that I have always felt. He said that the attitude in recruiting at Nebraska under Callahan and Bo was that (for the most part) they didn't need to offer local kids scholarships because they could get them to walk-on. That was the case with him. He was asked to walk-on, he could afford school without a scholarship and he knew he wanted to play for Nebraska so he never really pursued other schools to get other offers.

Now, he was OK with it because he could afford school on his own. However, his feelings is that this is unfair to a lot of local kids who aren't in that same boat.

I believe this is a casualty of the 85 scholarship limit along with coaches coming into the program that really don't have any idea about local Nebraska football. They feel pressure to go get the kids out of Texas, Florida, Louisiana or California so they save the scholarships for them.

However, I believe we have seen where there are obviously kids in the state that ended up playing well enough once there that they probably deserved a scholarship from the start over some other kids.

Being a walk-on does NOT mean you suck and don't deserve to play. I honestly don't understand some fans attitude like that.
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I don't think it matters if a kid is a walk on or scholarshipped, the best players should always play. However, I think what concerns those who write 'negatively' about having so many walk ons in the three deep chart is that it says our scholarships are being wasted really. We should be getting better players with scholarships that without - logically and naturally. If our selection process for awarding scholarships is to use recruiting services 'rankings' instead of actually going out there and finding them ourselves and truly evaluating them, then our recruiting is being done badly - at a minimum. We recruit our walk ons without the aid of recruiting 'gurus' etc. If our coaches are simply offering guys that other schools are offering and they are offering because some 'expert' says so, then it is the blind leading the blind.

 
I don't think having walk-ons starting at the O-line or Fullback position is a big deal because those positions are a lot about strength, power, and effort, which sometimes produce a late-bloomer/hard-worker at those spots.

But, Sam points out that having multiple walk-ons at "skill positions" like DE and WR are a concern and shows how the previous staff completely whiffed at those recruiting those positions. Gangwish is a great story about working hard and being a strong leader, but he is only starting because Moss pulled out his crank and Gregory left for the NFL. Dzuris in only getting meaningful snaps because guys like Natter and Keels haven't blossomed as everyone expected, so he has to play after Freedom got hurt. At WR, Brandon Reilly is super fast, but he is not a complete receiver. He drops a number of passes and can be taken out by effective bump and run CB's (see Wisconsin).

If NU wants to be a championship team, it needs better talent at certain positions, and can't be dependent on walk-ons at those positions.

 
ColoradoHusk said:
BUMP this discussion as Sam has an OWH write-up today. He has some good points on misses at WR and DE in recruiting are causing a number of walk-ons playing significant snaps.

http://www.omaha.com/huskers/another-examination-of-the-walk-on-talent-debate/article_7b58efdc-7670-11e5-b264-53999a89d960.html
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The final paragraph:

If I had to project a few years out, I'd suspect the walk-on percentage goes down quite a bit, but is never drawn down to zero. I'd expect, even in, say, 2018, Nebraska still has three or four walk-ons on the two-deep. That's just how Nebraska's built.
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Red Five said:
ColoradoHusk said:
BUMP this discussion as Sam has an OWH write-up today. He has some good points on misses at WR and DE in recruiting are causing a number of walk-ons playing significant snaps.

http://www.omaha.com/huskers/another-examination-of-the-walk-on-talent-debate/article_7b58efdc-7670-11e5-b264-53999a89d960.html
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The final paragraph:

If I had to project a few years out, I'd suspect the walk-on percentage goes down quite a bit, but is never drawn down to zero. I'd expect, even in, say, 2018, Nebraska still has three or four walk-ons on the two-deep. That's just how Nebraska's built.
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I would say that's a reasonable number, anything more than that would give me concern about the recruiting and development efforts.

 
Red Five said:
ColoradoHusk said:
BUMP this discussion as Sam has an OWH write-up today. He has some good points on misses at WR and DE in recruiting are causing a number of walk-ons playing significant snaps.

http://www.omaha.com/huskers/another-examination-of-the-walk-on-talent-debate/article_7b58efdc-7670-11e5-b264-53999a89d960.html
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The final paragraph:

If I had to project a few years out, I'd suspect the walk-on percentage goes down quite a bit, but is never drawn down to zero. I'd expect, even in, say, 2018, Nebraska still has three or four walk-ons on the two-deep. That's just how Nebraska's built.
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Yeah, we've had recruited walk-ons for every position on the team. And I'm sure this will continue. In the past it seems like there are some positions that we actually try to fill with walk-ons. Like fullback, punter, kicker and long snapper. We've had a lot of great walk-ons at these spots in particular.

Our walk-on program is one of the strengths of Nebraska.

 
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I'm looking at the 2012 recruiting class right now. 32 players on rivals.com were rated as a 5 star and a majority of them are in the NFL right now including two top 3 picks.
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...or...are they in the NFL because they went to programs that had the best coaching, best conditioning and the most exposure to NFL scouts, which elevated them from high school to professional level?

I will always believe that good coaching and conditioning trumps all. Joe Paterno negated Miami's five star and NFL first round speed and talent in Vinnie Testaverde, Michael Irvin, and Alonzo Highsmith for the 1987 National Championship with a philosophy of being the more physical team and making Miami "hear footsteps".

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this.

 
but he is only starting because Moss pulled out his crank and Gregory left for the NFL.
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So if Pelini would have recruited someone with LESS talent than Randy Gregory, we would be in a better spot now?...
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This recruiting is some tricky stuff!
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