Kill and Walk-Ons

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GoAUpher

GoAUpher

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One thing I think many folks on the board have lamented is the lack of a strong walk-on tradition at MN. I'm wondering if Coach Kill's history of coaching up less heralded guys might result in a better walk-on program. Certainly we'll likely see more MN kids get scholly offers who might not have under Brew (or Mase even?) but what about those kids who have promise but who you can't spend a scholly on right away? Thoughts from the board? Anyone read anything about his time at NIU that would speak to this?
 

What we need GoAUpher is for every expert out here, who is young enough and eligible, to become walk-ons. There is bound to be ONE diamond in the rough out here.
 

Dr.Don said:
What we need GoAUpher is for every expert out here, who is young enough and eligible, to become walk-ons. There is bound to be ONE diamond in the rough out here.
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I think most of us would've loved the opportunity, but weren't any good.
 

Mn is in a whole lot of competition for walk ons. Some of the better ones are given scholarships from the other schools in the area, whether North or South Dakota or many other schools. The players have to decide if they want a scholarship from those schools or pay their way through the U hoping to get a scholarship but in no way guaranteed. Kinda hard to blame anyone in that regard.

Also, the walk on would be players that may have potential to develop into quality players but have not shown enough to prove they will be. If they had, larger schools would be all over them.

Though I like the thought of walk on depth for the team, it is not an easy thing to accomplish and though there are players that make it, I suspect the percentages are not that high.
 

Our new coach is going to lead to a higher usage of prepositions on Gopherhole. What would have been Brewster Recruits or Brewster Walk-Ons now becomes Kill and Recruits or Kill and Walk-Ons.
 



calminnfan said:
Mn is in a whole lot of competition for walk ons. Some of the better ones are given scholarships from the other schools in the area, whether North or South Dakota or many other schools. The players have to decide if they want a scholarship from those schools or pay their way through the U hoping to get a scholarship but in no way guaranteed. Kinda hard to blame anyone in that regard.

Also, the walk on would be players that may have potential to develop into quality players but have not shown enough to prove they will be. If they had, larger schools would be all over them.

Though I like the thought of walk on depth for the team, it is not an easy thing to accomplish and though there are players that make it, I suspect the percentages are not that high.
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I think winning certainly would influence a few more to walk on instead of going to a smaller school like NDSU. If we have a few 8 or 9 win seasons, we might see a few more deciding to walk on even though they have to pay their way.
 

Walk On program started to get a lot better, but those are the kind of guys who rarely make an impact until they were older....

These guys all started as walk ons, i'm not sure what their scholorship status is right now.

Mike Rallis-LB
Zach Mottla - C
AJ Barker - WR
Austin Hahn - DT
Cameron Boticelli -DT/DE
Joey Balthazor - LB (played a lot of special teams)
John Hoese - started as a walk on in Brew's first season
Aaron Hill - LB

Our Walk ON program actually has improved quite a bit and I hope that continues with Kill.
 

Dr.Don said:
Exactly my point, ruralgopher.
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Yep, I was not good enough. In grad school I took a class called anthropometric measures. Many aspects of our bodies were measured (ratio of height to wing span, etc). I stupidly asked the prof what sport(s) my body might have been best for (I had played HS football and baseball without distinction). He took one look and said, "stick to academics son."
 



denguegopher said:
Yep, I was not good enough. In grad school I took a class called anthropometric measures. Many aspects of our bodies were measured (ratio of height to wing span, etc). I stupidly asked the prof what sport(s) my body might have been best for (I had played HS football and baseball without distinction). He took one look and said, "stick to academics son."
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Now there's a kill shot:eek:
 

For past walk-ons at Minnesota, remember that the Sherels and the Tow-Arnetts were also former non-scholarship player. So was Ben Kuznia and several others.

Chris Monter
 

any player who wants to play for the gophers that was not recruited should be excited that Kill is now the coach. Under Brewster, the walk-ons were neglected, now obviously there is a reason why they have RECRUITS, they are talented, but walk-ons can potentially be unnoticed explosive players.

Anyone remember the huge MPLS StarTrib front page article on Defensive Tackle #55 Tony Strouth from Edina, MN? Never given a chance, him and a couple others not looked at and moved on from the program.
 

Coach Kill is considered about depth and the lack of numbers Rightly so. I expect to see a good number of walk-ons to help build up our numbers.
 



Langers said:
any player who wants to play for the gophers that was not recruited should be excited that Kill is now the coach. Under Brewster, the walk-ons were neglected, now obviously there is a reason why they have RECRUITS, they are talented, but walk-ons can potentially be unnoticed explosive players.

Anyone remember the huge MPLS StarTrib front page article on Defensive Tackle #55 Tony Strouth from Edina, MN? Never given a chance, him and a couple others not looked at and moved on from the program.
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That is completely false.

The Walk On program was one of the few things that Brewster did well. Next year we could very likely have 3 starters who came to the program as preferred walk ons and another 4 guys who will see playint time.
 

The scholarship grid above shows only 87 active players including 59 scholarhip and 28 w/o's. I guess Coach Kill will fill as many scholarships as he is allowed to and also award a few to current w/o's. One good thing is he has about another two months to focus on recruiting.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
That is completely false.

The Walk On program was one of the few things that Brewster did well. Next year we could very likely have 3 starters who came to the program as preferred walk ons and another 4 guys who will see playint time.
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preferred sure, complete walk ons- not a chance.

Of course when you get Royston or Carufel there going to be starters, coming from Wisconsin/Notre Dame.
 

Langers said:
preferred sure, complete walk ons- not a chance
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So preferred walk-ons don't have to pay tuition now? Sweet!

(You should probably let their parents know, as I'm sure they would love a tuition refund check to buy Christmas presents.)
 

I agree that Minnesota has had some success with their walk-on program, but I don't know if it will ever be a really successful program due to a full DIII conference, an almost full dII conference, NDSU and UND right on the Minnesota border, and USD and SDSU just outside of state.

Our walk-on caliber players get plenty of opportunities to play for great football teams at all levels. UST and Bethel just played a tremendous game last weekend in the DIII playoffs, UMD is currently ranked #1 in DII, NDSU is always competitive and is still alieve in the FCS playoffs, the other 3 Dakota schools have expierienced success in the past 10 years.
 

Langers said:
8de09-NotSureIfSerious.jpg


preferred sure, complete walk ons- not a chance.

Of course when you get Royston or Carufel there going to be starters, coming from Wisconsin/Notre Dame.
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I am 100% serious and I wasn't talking Carufel nor Royston.

I already listed walk ons who have played a significant role.

Mike Rallis came to the U as a Walk On
Zach Mottla will get a lot of playing time next season
John Hoese came to MN as a walk on
Cameron Botticelli will get some snaps in the next few seasons
Austin Hahn
AJ Barker
Ed Cotton
Aaron Hill


I really don't know what the comment "preferred sure, complete walk ons - not a chance" means, and I am almost certain you don't either. The only kind of walk ons that a coach really has any say over are preferred walk ons. Those are the kids that the coach says to "I don't have a scholarship for you right now, but we'd like you on the team and you could eventually earn a scholarship". The other walk ons are simply kids who enrolled at the U and tried out for the team. I am not ripping on those kids, but when you are talking about developing a walk on program, you are absolutely talking about the preferred walk ons. By definition, the other kids are simply outside of the coach's control.
 

MNfootballfan said:
I agree that Minnesota has had some success with their walk-on program, but I don't know if it will ever be a really successful program due to a full DIII conference, an almost full dII conference, NDSU and UND right on the Minnesota border, and USD and SDSU just outside of state.

Our walk-on caliber players get plenty of opportunities to play for great football teams at all levels. UST and Bethel just played a tremendous game last weekend in the DIII playoffs, UMD is currently ranked #1 in DII, NDSU is always competitive and is still alieve in the FCS playoffs, the other 3 Dakota schools have expierienced success in the past 10 years.
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Yep, it will never be the level of Wisconsin because Sconny doesn't have any D2 or D1aa schools. Granted, UMD is full of Wisconsin kids and they sometimes cross the borders, but that is a drawback for the U (in comparison with Wisconsin).

On the other hand, Iowa has to deal with Iowa St. and Northern Iowa.
 

I would of thought Brewster would have had a great walk on program. Did he not? (I'm being serious, I don't know)

I think one of the best walk on tradition schools in the nation has to be the University of Nebraska. You can drive though ever single small town in this state. I'm talking even if the city has 300 people, someone from some time played football for the University of Nebraska.

A couple of my own Wheatonites played for Minnesota in 1948. I don't know how many have since then. A couple have played for NDSU, MSUM and Gustavus Adlophus over the past couple of years.
 


Brewster

Bob_Loblaw said:
That is completely false.

The Walk On program was one of the few things that Brewster did well. Next year we could very likely have 3 starters who came to the program as preferred walk ons and another 4 guys who will see playint time.
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Brewster did lots of good things and walk-ons was definitely one of them. Coaching and stability were issues but recruiting and forging relationships were vastly improved under Brewster.
 

ruralgopher said:
Obviously I mis-read then. I thought you were suggesting that the have open auditions 'Invincable' style.
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rural, I was trying to also point out that all of the "experts" who comment on GopherHole about "he sucks", "he is not worth crap", etc., know everything and hence are qualified to judge and critique players and coaches, but they themselves were never worth a $hit to play the game. It's called the "frustrated jock syndrome".
 

Dr.Don said:
rural, I was trying to also point out that all of the "experts" who comment on GopherHole about "he sucks", "he is not worth crap", etc., know everything and hence are qualified to judge and critique players and coaches, but they themselves were never worth a $hit to play the game. It's called the "frustrated jock syndrome".
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What you are saying is that it is impossible to evaluate who is good and who is not if you haven't played the sport. Even a person who has never driven a car can tell if someone is driving badly. People who have never acted can tell a bad movie. Having played football doesn't give anyone special knowledge unavailable to others.
 

RodentRampage said:
What you are saying is that it is impossible to evaluate who is good and who is not if you haven't played the sport. Even a person who has never driven a car can tell if someone is driving badly. People who have never acted can tell a bad movie. Having played football doesn't give anyone special knowledge unavailable to others.
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This. Just like anything else, you can become knowledgeable at football if you take the time to learn.
 

If I was a kid going to college, it would be a hard sell to make Minnesota my choice based on the hope that they will let me walk on and try to earn a spot. Why do that if you can get a scholarship at another area university/college?

I feel like a lot of the walk-ons might be student athletes who would be going to the U of M regardless if they played football, so if they don't eventually earn a scholarship they still can achieve their academic goals where they wanted to (the U) as well. I could be off on that, though, just an opinion.
 

emann said:
If I was a kid going to college, it would be a hard sell to make Minnesota my choice based on the hope that they will let me walk on and try to earn a spot. Why do that if you can get a scholarship at another area university/college?

I feel like a lot of the walk-ons might be student athletes who would be going to the U of M regardless if they played football, so if they don't eventually earn a scholarship they still can achieve their academic goals where they wanted to (the U) as well. I could be off on that, though, just an opinion.
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It's all about dreams, kids that dream about being Gophers will walk on, and spurn lower level scholarshps. We have some of that but not enough.
 

The Gopher roster has averaged between 105 and 110 players the last few years. With 85 scholarships available, that means about 20 - 25 players each year are considered walk-ons. Preferred walk-ons are also given a seat at the training table and I'm guessing more time with the trainers than regular walk-ons.

Our roster size is similar to most Big Ten schools. I think PSU, OSU and Michigan's are usually a little larger, up to around 115 players on the roster.
 

nsmike said:
It's all about dreams, kids that dream about being Gophers will walk on, and spurn lower level scholarshps. We have some of that but not enough.
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It is about putting a $ value on dreams. Is the dream of playing for the U worth the risk of having to pay for college? That $ value is what ~$100k if they turn down a free ride from one of the dakota schools?
 

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