No more walk-ons? Swinney passionate in defense of non-scholarship players

Swinney spoke to the media Thursday in Charlotte (ACC Photo).

David Hood - Senior Writer - Friday, July 26 2024

CHARLOTTE, NC – Dabo Swinney doesn’t hide his feelings when he’s passionate about something, and he’s passionate about walk-ons. With the news that the NCAA might take away that part of the game, Swinney was at his best.

During the ACC Kickoff in Charlotte on Thursday, I asked Swinney about a proposed rule change that would increase the current limit of 85 scholarships to somewhere around 105. Swinney was quick to point out that he’s not a fan.

“The crazy thing is, there's not many coaches that want 105 scholarships. We want to keep our walk-ons. It's hard to manage that many guys. When you have that many guys on scholarship, you think you got transfers now, wait till that number gets there. It's going to be a lot,” Swinney said, while saying that he has no idea how he will handle the increase. “It's going to change a lot of things. But I think it's a product of the lawsuit that was settled. I don't think there was an intention to say, Okay, you can have no more walk-ons. I think the way it was settled is whatever your roster size is, that's your scholarship limit. So you couldn't limit scholarships.

“That's where administrators get together and say, We can't have 130 guys on scholarship, so we're going to have to reduce the roster. Whatever they reduce it to, everybody has to be on scholarship. That's how we've gotten to the situation. That's great for baseball, soccer, some of the sports that you take 11 scholarships and spread it out amongst 30-some guys. But for football, the unintended consequence is it basically eliminates your walk-ons. There's no coach that wants that.”

Swinney called it “sad” and said the college game differs from the NFL in how rosters are constructed and handled.

“It's a really sad thing to me. Yeah, great, we get more scholarships, that's awesome. But our game is just different. If you look and think 105 guys, you have to dive a little deeper into that. If you look at the NFL, I mean, they'll have 53, 16 or 18 on the practice squad. Whatever their roster is, it never changes,” Swinney said. “For example, if they have eight active linemen, they never have less than that. They can go to any practice squad on 32 teams and take a guy on Monday and activate him to play. Every Tuesday, they can bring free agents through.

“In college you can't grab the guy out of the algebra class in the middle of the season and bring him over here and plug him in. Whatever you start with, it dwindles. This is a game played by big people. You don't put the corner at nose guard for the week for the scout team. It's a complicated game. You may have maybe that corner physically could go play running back, but he doesn't know what to do. It's not like they all sit in the same meetings, learn the same terminology. It's not that simple.”

In other words, Swinney wants to keep the walk-on part of the game.

“It's frustrating. You need to not be able to have the walk-ons. Then in our world, we don't get them at 7 and they leave at 4,” he said. “We have a very small window to practice. We have 17 hours to meet, to work out, to practice to get a team ready to play Monday through Friday. When you go on the practice field, you have to be incredibly efficient with your time. If you don't have scout teams, to be able to present the looks, it's really difficult. So I think it's going to really challenge. It's a challenge, for sure. We'll figure it out. How you have to practice to develop these kids at this level, 'cause when they come to college, the guys that we recruit, it's the first time they've had peers in their life. When you go to the NFL, these guys, they're the best of the best, they've been playing football forever. If you can't win on a slant route versus inside technique, they just bring somebody in there who can because it's different in how they practice.

“We have to develop guys. Yeah, you might be strong, but it's the first time you have been matched up. We have to teach a guy how to pull properly. It's a different type of preparation in college. When you do away with the walk-ons, guys that are just wanting to be a part of it, they want to serve, that 105 is going to dwindle. We have no way to practice. There were teams last year that played bowl games, if this rule is in effect last year, they would have had to forfeit the bowl game because they wouldn't have had enough players. Again, you don't just take a guy and go play left guard. It's frustrating. We're going to play more games than we've ever played, practice more than we ever played, finish longer than we ever played, and have the smallest roster we've ever had.”

He didn’t stop there.

“Again, it's not like they said, Hey, no walk-ons. That's just what happened when it was settled, that you can't limit scholarships anymore,” Swinney added. “Again, we could keep our 120, which all coaches want, but everybody would have to be on scholarship. Obviously, that's a problem. Everybody's been trying to figure out how can we best make it work. I think it sounds like - I don't know this - but it sounds like it's heading to 105. That means you have more scholarships. I think everybody will handle it different. There are some walk-ons that you got to keep, now you got more scholarships, so... There will be some guys that might take a few more developmental guys. You might take maybe a transfer or two from different levels. I think it will just be a 'to be determined' on how it's handled.

“I do think you'll see that transfer number go way up because you only travel about 80. That will be a lot of football players not getting to play. Again, the walk-on program is what disappoints me the most. Kids that just want to be a part of it, that want to come help you practice in practice. It saddens me that that is probably going to go away.”