Maybe the GAs are giving them reps. Maybe they watch and listen and run with the scout team. Maybe the top two players get 80% and the rest is pushed down.
So if 7 and 8 are getting little to no reps, why are they on the team?
I don't really know or care to be honest. Maybe Frost uses them as tackling dummies.
But isn't that sort of the point of message boards? To discuss or "figure out" why we suck.
You do remember how many guys Tom had on the roster including the walk ons right? Somehow Tom managed it and was able to get his guys to execute. I had fraternity brothers on the team when I was at NU. The roster was huge. GAs do the bulk of the work with the walk ons and those guys mainly get their shot in the spring when the roster size is pared down due to graduations.
So you'll admit that it CAN be done? I do agree with you that it has to be tough to do justice to that many guys down the depth chart but man we've filled a lot of holes with guys nobody expected to move up the depth chart. Some of these kids especially from small schools you really don't know until you see them against D-1 competition. FWIW 160 does seem like a lot to me too so I'll give you that.
I get what you're saying but sometimes giving a guy a second chance pans out when they have the extra motivation that this is their last chance... Pete Carroll built the Seahawks team around this concept when he took over and it did well for him... He rolled through a ton of guys finding those gems... I can see this is why HCSF is doing what he is with guys like this as well as our walk on program...
I would say most of the guys that came in as walk ons,that were contributed, were preferred walk on. The coaches knew who they were and those players got a better chance for more opportunity than rando walk on. You can go back 40 years and may be find 50 players that were complete surprises.
The "preferred" term kind of makes me giggle. IF you were that preferred you would have gotten a scholarship. Obviously they knew about the kids and think they have potential if they let them walk on. I think virtually every year there's a guy that pops up that nobody was really expecting anything out of.
A preferred walk on as someone who was actually recruited. They have different rules as far as when they can join the team and when they can begin practice. It separates the guys you think have a chance to actually play football at Nebraska from the guys that you don’t think will ever step foot on the field.
There is not one "Rando" walk on allowed on the team. They're all recruited now to some degree. The difference is that the guys who they think have the most potential get called preferred and sometimes get added to the 105 roster for fall camp.
There are plenty of rando walk ons. Every year Nebraska has a class of about 25 announced walk ons. That means that basically 1 out of every 4 quits completely every year.
Of course we should discuss it. I am just calling out when people try to state things as facts and attribute that to why we fail. There is a lot of opinions stated. And those opinions are usually driven by emotions. People are pissed off about losing. I am too. But I try not to make up scenarios to justify my frustration.
There are kids coaches ask to walk on, and there are kids that want to walk on and some of these are allowed. The good walk ons provide depth in terms of special teams and the practice field. I wouldn't probably have a roster the size of Frost's, but I would want a kid to join the team if I thought he could help the program.
So the issue is over about 30 extra roster spots. I don't see the upside to it either, but on the other hand, Frost et al. don't know for sure which kids will contribute out of the walk ons. A few of the kids are pretty decent athletes and end up on special teams. I would imagine that for about half of them, it doesn't take long to know they will never play a down of competitive football in a B1G stadium. But given that some people get their shorts in a bunch if the stories are that walk ons are getting treated poorly, the easy solution if you have the resources is to have a fatter walk on program than might be ideal.
The kids allowed on though are evaluated. They aren't random kids who show up first day of practice and are issued a uniform. I would bet that 99% of kids who walk on at NU get some type of recruiting contact before they walk on.