Look, I understand the concept of Nebraska’s famed walk on program. Get a kid who bleeds red. Lives and dies Nebraska football. It’s in his heart. He’s Rudy for the red team. He works hard, gets bigger, is more physical and nastier on the field than most because of a chip on his shoulder and his love for the game and love for the program who gave him a chance. It’s his home team as well so he eats up every word. And his senior season he leads by example and leaves it all on the field every week and plays with passion to make up for his lack of physical ability. They get his best effort every week. I understand it, I even like it. I’ll go even further than that, to some degree I think it works and helps the program. So, despite somewhat mocking the walk on program, I’m on record here as saying I like it and would not want it to go away.
With that being said, approximately 10-12 walk ons in a week all playing linebacker tells me there might be some recruiting misses at the position. If it were 12-15 walk ons across the field, linemen, linebackers, defensive backs, running backs, I’d be less concerned. But when a bunch are for one position, I feel like it’s due to a miss with planned recruits. And let’s be honest for a second, Iowa traditionally is slower at linebacker, gets beat by crossing patterns and RPO quarterbacks who can make plays with their feet. So even though these kids seem quick for farm community Midwest boys, they might not be quick enough against PSU or tOSU in the B1G.
