McCarney and walk-ons

casual fan · January 10, 2014

How many walk-ons have become scholarship players under McCarney? It seems like a bunch.

I think Kenny Buyers, Kaydon Kirby, Zach Paul, Blake Macek, and Brandon McCoy were all walk-ons and big contributors. (You can correct me and add to the list.)

Mac seems to pull in good walk-ons and transfers every year who end up with scholarships.

It's a great selling point as there are some really good players that fall through the cracks.

Mean Green 93-98 · January 10, 2014

Some WRs come to mind . . . Ivan Delgado, Darnell Smith . . . I think Lynrick Pleasant was put on scholarship.

Harry · January 10, 2014

To me this is the one CLEAR advantage we have over SMU and TCU and many other programs in the state.

UNT is sitting in the middle of the most fertile high school recruiting grounds in the state.

When you dig in and see how many VERY good players here do not get I-A scholarships it is shocking. There are many reasons but the primary one is that so many schools are doing early recruiting and if a kid has an injury early on they fall off of the radar and never get picked back up. Or a kid has a monster senior year and it's too late because many of the programs are filled up.

UNT has a great location, and offers reasonable tuition in comparison to the privates. So a kid can minimize their tuition and living expenses while trying to secure a spot on the team. Have you seen the tuition and cost of living at SMU and TCU lately? I think it's around $50K a year!

McCarney doesn't just give lip service to the walk-on program he has shown a propensity to give walk-ons scholarships throughout his career.

SMU and TCU can sell the dollar value amount of their private education to scholarship recruits and it works very well in the suburban more higher income high school programs. They have both created a bubble in which the players from inner city programs can feel at home. However, the fact is that most of the scholarship players TCU and SMU sign will not fit in or identify with the rest of the undergraduate populations at SMU and TCU. UNT's diversity is a strength that needs to be promoted.

TCU by gaining access to the Big 12 is a tougher nut to crack but SMU and the AAC should provide us with some opportunities to win.

The walkon program at UNT is a big strength and I am very pleased to see Coach Mac embrace it as he has. It allows us to evaluate players on the college field of play as opposed to what they did in high school. It gives hungry, motivated athletes who were overlooked or had an injury/setback a second chance. It pushes the scholarship players to produce. I think it will only get better in future years.

pastorgrant · January 10, 2014

Harry, I wish I could +1 your posts.

UNTMike81 · January 10, 2014

Question, based on football teams announced GPA of 3.0 or better. Can an athletic scholarship player apply for academic scholarship? If approved for academic scholarship can player begin to use that for attendance at UNT. Then freeing up an athletic scholarship to provide to a walk on player or new recruit in next recruiting class?

Mean Green 93-98 · January 10, 2014

Question, based on football teams announced GPA of 3.0 or better. Can an athletic scholarship player apply for academic scholarship? If approved for academic scholarship can player begin to use that for attendance at UNT. Then freeing up an athletic scholarship to provide to a walk on player or new recruit in next recruiting class?

If they play, they count against the 85 scholarship limit, regardless of what kind of scholarship it is.

UNTMike81 · January 10, 2014

Thanks...

DT 90 · January 10, 2014

Question, based on football teams announced GPA of 3.0 or better. Can an athletic scholarship player apply for academic scholarship? If approved for academic scholarship can player begin to use that for attendance at UNT. Then freeing up an athletic scholarship to provide to a walk on player or new recruit in next recruiting class?

No, that is not allowed by the NCAA. What 93-98 stated. They can receive one if their "athletic scholarship"/eligibility is exhausted. Joe Blow student with an Academic Scholarship can "walk on" though.

"Academic Assistance" is what D-III schools do because they don't have athletic scholarships.

Edited January 10, 2014 by DT 90

Danish43 · January 10, 2014

We hear the word "Branding" in the business world. NT with the right type of marketing can promote North Texas as most acceptable to walk-ons. Would not have known Harry, if you had not brought it up that Coach Mac throughout his career has promoted walk-ons.

Sam Houston State in the past was or is known for giving Div I quarterback transfers a chance to play like what we saw with that A&M QB and that other guy from Okla who was involved in some kind of malfeasance concerning a booster 's Automotive Dealer regarding employment.,

UNTP1 · January 10, 2014

Nic Summerfield

casual fan · January 10, 2014

The answer is 20.

Thanks. I knew there were a bunch.

Sometimes rankings may not be indicative of how good a class really is.

Mac & Company must be doing their homework and keeping an eye out for both transfers and walk-ons.

meangreenthirteen · January 10, 2014

Thanks. I knew there were a bunch.

Sometimes rankings may not be indicative of how good a class really is.

Mac & Company must be doing their homework and keeping an eye out for both transfers and walk-ons.

I think the whole recruiting class ranking system is far less than empirical and hardly even indicative of how good a class will be.

Wag Tag · January 10, 2014

To me this is the one CLEAR advantage we have over SMU and TCU and many other programs in the state.

UNT is sitting in the middle of the most fertile high school recruiting grounds in the state.

When you dig in and see how many VERY good players here do not get I-A scholarships it is shocking. There are many reasons but the primary one is that so many schools are doing early recruiting and if a kid has an injury early on they fall off of the radar and never get picked back up. Or a kid has a monster senior year and it's too late because many of the programs are filled up.

UNT has a great location, and offers reasonable tuition in comparison to the privates. So a kid can minimize their tuition and living expenses while trying to secure a spot on the team. Have you seen the tuition and cost of living at SMU and TCU lately? I think it's around $50K a year!

McCarney doesn't just give lip service to the walk-on program he has shown a propensity to give walk-ons scholarships throughout his career.

SMU and TCU can sell the dollar value amount of their private education to scholarship recruits and it works very well in the suburban more higher income high school programs. They have both created a bubble in which the players from inner city programs can feel at home. However, the fact is that most of the scholarship players TCU and SMU sign will not fit in or identify with the rest of the undergraduate populations at SMU and TCU. UNT's diversity is a strength that needs to be promoted.

TCU by gaining access to the Big 12 is a tougher nut to crack but SMU and the AAC should provide us with some opportunities to win.

The walkon program at UNT is a big strength and I am very pleased to see Coach Mac embrace it as he has. It allows us to evaluate players on the college field of play as opposed to what they did in high school. It gives hungry, motivated athletes who were overlooked or had an injury/setback a second chance. It pushes the scholarship players to produce. I think it will only get better in future years.

Great viewpoint and I agree. An addition to offers not being made is the size of the players. With coach W doing the conditioning it is a win win!

Harry · January 10, 2014

I think the whole recruiting class ranking system is far less than empirical and hardly even indicative of how good a class will be.

I agree with you 100%. It is a system built off of the biggest programs because the recruiting services make their most revenue from those fan bases. So it is naturally going to lean towards ranking the players that the biggest revenue, most well funded programs recruit. In the state of Texas every year there are about 50-75 stud high school players that CLEARLY are head and shoulders above the rest. The have the size, the 40-times the pedigree of being part of a high level program etc.. Some of them have grades others do not. These are the players that drive the recruiting services revenue because the top programs are actively recruiting them early on. Then there is about 300 after that who have talent but are not for a multitude of reasons included in that upper tier. These guys are MUCH more difficult to evaluate and rank.

To give you a sense of how this game is played, back in the aughts we had a player who committed to us over Oklahoma State... he had a legitimate offer from Oklahoma State. He wanted to play a position that OSU would not slot him to play. When the OSU recruiting coordinator found out that he was going to North Texas he retracted his offer to the kid. Why? Because he did not want the kid to be able to list OSU as a school he was offered from.

The other thing that has changed the recruiting services is twitter. Recruits are using twitter to announce their visits and destinations whereby they would use the recruiting services to do that before.

Green59 · January 10, 2014

To me this is the one CLEAR advantage we have over SMU and TCU and many other programs in the state.

UNT is sitting in the middle of the most fertile high school recruiting grounds in the state.

When you dig in and see how many VERY good players here do not get I-A scholarships it is shocking. There are many reasons but the primary one is that so many schools are doing early recruiting and if a kid has an injury early on they fall off of the radar and never get picked back up. Or a kid has a monster senior year and it's too late because many of the programs are filled up.

UNT has a great location, and offers reasonable tuition in comparison to the privates. So a kid can minimize their tuition and living expenses while trying to secure a spot on the team. Have you seen the tuition and cost of living at SMU and TCU lately? I think it's around $50K a year!

McCarney doesn't just give lip service to the walk-on program he has shown a propensity to give walk-ons scholarships throughout his career.

SMU and TCU can sell the dollar value amount of their private education to scholarship recruits and it works very well in the suburban more higher income high school programs. They have both created a bubble in which the players from inner city programs can feel at home. However, the fact is that most of the scholarship players TCU and SMU sign will not fit in or identify with the rest of the undergraduate populations at SMU and TCU. UNT's diversity is a strength that needs to be promoted.

TCU by gaining access to the Big 12 is a tougher nut to crack but SMU and the AAC should provide us with some opportunities to win.

The walkon program at UNT is a big strength and I am very pleased to see Coach Mac embrace it as he has. It allows us to evaluate players on the college field of play as opposed to what they did in high school. It gives hungry, motivated athletes who were overlooked or had an injury/setback a second chance. It pushes the scholarship players to produce. I think it will only get better in future years.

I do know that Coach Mac gives out 'ships to not just the walk ons that have contributed in significant game action but also he rewards hard working walkons who have stuck with the program but see very little game action. I believe that occasionally rewarding those walkons with a 'ship that work hard in practice on the scout team that helps the starters to play better is a good thing for the perception of the walk on program. If a future high school senior that is a walk on candidate for college football knows that coming to play at UNT gives him a chance for a future 'ship then we might be able to attract higher quality walkons that could see further game action.