pk2
Active member
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2010
- Messages
- 300
- Reaction score
- 245
- Points
- 43
From Stewart Mandel's mailbag at theathletic.com
Since it's a pay site, and I've seen comments on GH along the lines of "couldn't read that," I won't post the link (OK, I will: https://theathletic.com/347497/2018...ilbag-preseason-hype-stanford-michigan-state/), but instead (OK, in addition), paste the entire question and answer.
Wisconsin has a history of being able to take walk-ons and low-level recruits and develop them into NFL Draft prospects. How can other schools with similar resources (Minnesota, Illinois) try to replicate its system?
- Victor B.
A: I don’t think that’s an easy thing to replicate. Wisconsin has been doing it for nearly 30 years dating to Barry Alvarez’s arrival, and he modeled his program after his alma mater, Nebraska, which set the gold standard for walk-ons long before Wisconsin before seeing it fade since the turn of the century.
The common thread at both schools is they’re the only FBS programs in football-crazed states. Kids in those states grow up dreaming of playing for the Huskers and Badgers, so they’re perhaps more open to walking on there rather than taking scholarships at lower-rung programs. And Wisconsin has had so many walk-ons have success at this point that it becomes a selling point with each subsequent class.
Neither Minnesota nor Illinois holds that same kind of undying loyalty with recruits in their state, and neither has the recent track record of producing walk-ons who went on to make millions in the NFL, so you’d pretty much be trying to invent a tradition from scratch.
That being said, P.J. Fleck has mastered the art of heavily produced surprise scholarship announcements for walk-ons. He signed 11 preferred walk-ons in the 2018 class. That’s a big number. You can see where that could in fact become a key element of his Minnesota program.
But the school where you’re most likely to see a lot of impact from walk-ons over the next few years is … Nebraska, where Scott Frost has made it a point since his introductory news conference that the Huskers will be returning to their walk-on roots. He announced a whopping 17 walk-on signees in February, with plans to bring that number even higher by August.
Since it's a pay site, and I've seen comments on GH along the lines of "couldn't read that," I won't post the link (OK, I will: https://theathletic.com/347497/2018...ilbag-preseason-hype-stanford-michigan-state/), but instead (OK, in addition), paste the entire question and answer.
Wisconsin has a history of being able to take walk-ons and low-level recruits and develop them into NFL Draft prospects. How can other schools with similar resources (Minnesota, Illinois) try to replicate its system?
- Victor B.
A: I don’t think that’s an easy thing to replicate. Wisconsin has been doing it for nearly 30 years dating to Barry Alvarez’s arrival, and he modeled his program after his alma mater, Nebraska, which set the gold standard for walk-ons long before Wisconsin before seeing it fade since the turn of the century.
The common thread at both schools is they’re the only FBS programs in football-crazed states. Kids in those states grow up dreaming of playing for the Huskers and Badgers, so they’re perhaps more open to walking on there rather than taking scholarships at lower-rung programs. And Wisconsin has had so many walk-ons have success at this point that it becomes a selling point with each subsequent class.
Neither Minnesota nor Illinois holds that same kind of undying loyalty with recruits in their state, and neither has the recent track record of producing walk-ons who went on to make millions in the NFL, so you’d pretty much be trying to invent a tradition from scratch.
That being said, P.J. Fleck has mastered the art of heavily produced surprise scholarship announcements for walk-ons. He signed 11 preferred walk-ons in the 2018 class. That’s a big number. You can see where that could in fact become a key element of his Minnesota program.
But the school where you’re most likely to see a lot of impact from walk-ons over the next few years is … Nebraska, where Scott Frost has made it a point since his introductory news conference that the Huskers will be returning to their walk-on roots. He announced a whopping 17 walk-on signees in February, with plans to bring that number even higher by August.