Steve Sarkisian discusses roster numbers, walk-ons, and practice in a changing landscape
Without a doubt, the most discussed on-field related story at SEC Spring Meetings in Destin, Fla. was the future complexion of football rosters. A potential outcome of the House v. NCAA case is that scholarship limits are eliminated, but also that schools alter how many players are on a football roster. If schools have to set aside 22 percent of their budget to paying athletes, then they’ll have to make tough decisions about on how many athletes they are paying. A possible casualty in that process is eliminating walk-ons.
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With the help of an 85-man scholarship roster and a robust walk-on program to bring the roster to over 100, Texas likes to “two spot” at practice and have, essentially, two practices going at the same time.
Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian was asked about the benefits of two-spotting on Tuesday, specifically as it relates to someone like true freshman early enrollee Alex January in comparison to senior Alfred Collins.
“In football, I really believe you get better at football by doing it, by failing, by learning from failures, and then doing it again,” Sarkisian said. “In the traditional model of one-spotting, I have 22 guys out there practicing one play. That means I have another 100 standing on the sideline watching those 22.
“Well, you can only practice so long, and so at the end of a practice and I’m an Alex January, maybe I got 8-12 reps that day because of the rotation. If we can two-spot, now I’ve got 44 guys going at the same time. Now if I’m Alex January and I get off the practice field, I may have gotten 28, 34, 36 reps that day. They’re not all going to be perfect, but when I go into the film room I’m not watching (Kenny) Baker only critique Vernon Broughton and Alfred Collins. You’re getting critiqued, you’re getting coached, and I think that’s how you get better at the sport. That’s how you get better at anything.”
Remove walk-ons, and the ability to two-spot as regularly as Texas does likely goes away. If the roster size goes to a hypothetical 90 players, then coaches around the country will have to figure out how to properly acclimate their players to the rigors of a football season that extends well into January without losing large portions of their roster to injury.
Sarkisian didn’t go as far as Texas A&M coach Mike Elko in saying that he was vehemently opposed to the elimination of walk-ons, something that makes sense for the head coach of a program that boasts about being the home of the 12th Man.
As he typically does, Sarkisian espoused the necessity to continually adapt. In recent years that’s meant the portal, NIL, realignment, and much more.
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“I think in the end, if (85 total players) is the number, that’s the number,” Sarkisian said. “We have to adapt. We have to adjust, and we’ve got to figure out the best way to put our players in the best position to have success.”
Sarkisian, the father of a walk-on in Brady Sarkisian, asked Tuesday “what about the stories about all the great walk-ons over time that really shape what college football is about? … Those types of things, I’m hopeful we can find a common ground on something that is a reasonable number.”
While roster numbers were a hot topic in Destin, it wasn’t close to the most important for Texas football fans. That would be NIL and the future of collectives. For an in-depth look at that topic, read Friday’s Humidor: From chaos comes order, but what does order look like? (On3+)
