[Husker] Pelini Article

Mon Aug 25 08:21:53 CDT 2008

When I playhed at LHS 75-77, we had several coaches who played at Nebraska.  Larry Frost, head coach, Dave Gillispi (spelling), and one more I can't remember his name.

Our offense was numbered like Nebraka's and the blocking schemes were the same.  We had two guys who went to Nebraska in 78 on scholorship, and 3 others who walked on.  I was offered Kansas State, Kearny State, Weslyan, and others, but I would have walked on to Nebraska with no financial assistance before I went to those other schools.

I joined the Air Force instead, but I still think I missed out by not walking on and trying to play for Nebraska.

Bob, like usual is stating his opinion which is fine.  However, just because Bob doesn't think the walk on program is "crucial", and doesn't think the top teams use walk ons, doesn't make it so.

Tom Osborne believed in walk ons back in my day and he believes in walk ons now.  They have their place and purpose.  Rudy wasn't a top movie for no reason.  People, and teams love a guy who isn't good enough on the surface, but has the goods deep inside.  It inspires the guys who do have the talent.  It inspires the coaches to see someone give everything for seemingly nothing in return, other than to belong.

Get a clue.  The walk on program was and is one of the best things about Nebraska football.

Todd in Tennessee

--- On Mon, 8/25/08, kaufsss at aol.com <kaufsss at aol.com> wrote:

From: kaufsss at aol.com <kaufsss at aol.com>
Subject: Re: [Husker] Pelini Article
To: nickchevance at gmail.com, husker at tssi.com
Date: Monday, August 25, 2008, 7:54 AM

Very nice recap Nick - I agree.? Didn't most of the High Schools in Nebraska
used to run the Nebraska Offense?? I always saw the walkon program as a reward
for the High Schools (coaches and players) for teaching the system and giving
kids 4 extra years of prework in the offense.? We have all talked about how the
system used to be quite different than what most schools ran - so this was a way
to get unrecruited players that would fit this system.? 

Steve Kauf
A husker fan deep in South Texas

Not the Victory but the Action
Not the Goal but the Game
In the Deed the Glory

-----Original Message-----
From: Nick Chevance <nickchevance at gmail.com>
To: husker at tssi.com <husker at tssi.com>
Sent: Sun, 24 Aug 2008 10:45 pm
Subject: Re: [Husker] Pelini Article

On Sun, Aug 24, 2008 at 9:22 PM, Bob Beach <baseballguy at neb.rr.com>
wrote:
>     It is very possible many schools don't open up their program that
anyone
> that wants to come out for football can do that.  It is likely many
schools
> only allow those out for football that are on scholarship.  85 players
> suited up for a game is a lot of players.  My guess are most of the the
> National powers operate this way.
> Bob Beach

I've tried really hard to track this discussion but it seems to slip
out of my grasp just when I think I know what we're arguing about.
But, for what its worth, Bob says the stuff above, and since USC was
mentioned as an example of where population seems to give USC an edge
just by the shear number of potential players in spitting distance of
the campus, I went to a USC fan site.  Interesting.

http://www.teamandras.com/USC/2008_USC_Football_Charts_Rev12_2008_08_17.html

If USC only used the 2, 3, 4 and 5 star players on scholarship, there
shouldn't be too many more than about 85, according to Bob's argument.
 But, the USC roster lists 88 players from California (including 26
walk-ons), and 29 (4 walk-ons) from other states.  While my mind is a
bit fuzzy this evening, my math tells me 117 players (30 walk-ons; 10
sophomores, 8 juniors, and 2 seniors).  That's pretty close to a
quarter of the team as walk-ons.  That seems pretty significant.  And
the total number of walk-ons is not dominated by first year players -
two thirds have stayed more than the first year to contribute - you
have to assume).  And the total number of players seems close to what
Callahan thought was a comfortable number of players.  Dr. Tom, I
thought, liked to have many more players.  So, we'd recruit
(encourage) many more walk-ons.

So, maybe I missed the point of the argument, but it seems that other
programs have walk-on programs, those players contribute, and tend to
stick around as much as scholarship players.  Walk-ons may be more
important to this program (NU) just because we aren't likely to
attract as many as th
e top recruits as a USC.  But here it was also a
different philosophy on what the walk-on program was intended to serve
- both to attract talent that may have been missed by scouts, and to
make the 'community' of Nebraska feel tied to the program because
Little Joey, former good talent in High School, gets to where the red
N helmet for four years.

But then, maybe I misunderstood what we're talking about.

Nick
-- 
"In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and
has come
into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish
between weather which will melt a brass doorknob and weather which
will only make it mushy."
Mark Twain

_______________________________________________
husker site list
husker at tssi.com
http://romaine.tssi.com/mailman/listinfo/husker

_______________________________________________
husker site list
husker at tssi.com
http://romaine.tssi.com/mailman/listinfo/husker