Pat McAfee lauds Lane Kiffin and Kirby Smart for standing up against elimination of walk-ons in CFB
Pat McAfee praised Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin and Georgia head coach Kirby Smart for a plan that would be another change in college football. The change is the potential elimination of the walk-on in college football.
The change would be made if players were contracted to play for their colleges. this means that there would be no need for walk-on players. This is something that Kiffin and Smart disagree with.
McAfee praised the two coaches during an edition of the Pat McAfee Show:
"Lane Kiffin and Kirby Smart were the leaders, saying 'you can take money out of our contracts to help pay for these walk ons to come on the team' ... Sources say that they are 100% serious"
Walk-on players are those who played for their university program but were not awarded a scholarship or recruited by said university. While some walk-ons are weaker than scholarship players, there are notable examples of college walk-ons that have gone on to have a successful NFL career.
These include NFL player and former Wisconsin Badger J.J Watt, and NFL quarterbacks Baker Mayfield and Daniel Jones.
Walk-on players are a quintessential part of college football, allowing anyone to play for the program.
However, college football is moving away from this model and slowly becoming more and more like professional football. The latest suggestion is to allow players to be paid by their program, which will benefit the player. But for this to happen, they will need to be contracted to play football by the university.
This could lead to a system where only those who are contracted to play will be able to play football. The contracted players will likely be those who are on scholarships and who are recruited by the university. This will effectively eliminate the walk-on from college football.
The suggestion made by Kiffin and Smart may be the only way to keep this historic tradition alive for the future.
What have other head coaches said about walk-on players?
Lane Kiffin and Kirby Smart are not the only two college football coaches who have spoken out about keeping walk-on players. Missouri Tigers head coach Eli Drinkwitz has also spoken out about this.
From Drinkwitz's perspective, he views walk-on players as an essential part of a football program from a safety perspective.
"Well, first and foremost, it’s player safety,” he said at a recent press conference (via On3.com), “and it’s about being able to maintain the health and safety of your players throughout a season.”
"With what they’re trying to impose upon us with roster limits, you would be set with a number of players and there is no ability to add or subtract from that team for your entire season. And I just I don’t think that’s a practical way to go about it.”
College football rosters are limited, and the players are playing more games than they have ever had to.
Injuries will happen, and there may be a point where there will be no replacements for a player. Walk-ons are the solution, as they provide a much larger talent pool of coaches. They also give players not recruited by the program a chance to make it.