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Featherston: Duke Football Builds Walk-On Program
8/23/2009 11:15:00 AM | Football
DURHAM, N.C. - It's not easy for Duke to find walk-on football players.
At rival state schools, it's much easier to convince borderline college prospects to come to campus on their own and maybe win a scholarship later in their careers.
"It's easier because it's not as expensive to go to school there," Coach David Cutcliffe said. "You get a lot of people that come out to follow their dream. They have grown up fans. I've had as many as 50-plus walk-ons on our team [at Tennessee]. At Ole Miss it was very beneficial to us and we ended up with quite a few scholarship players out of that."
But when Cutcliffe arrived at Duke following the 2007 season, he found exactly one walk-on in the program.
"We did have two non-kickers, but one quit," said Terrell Smith, a holdover from the previous staff. Now, as assistant director of football relations, Smith oversees the new walk-on program that Cutcliffe set up.
"In the past, we didn't really try to go out and identify guys to walk-on," Smith explained. "Now we do. Most of those guys are guys coaches see on film. We see they have good grades and we feel like they could get in school here and also contribute to the team. So what the coaches do is, as they watch film, they are identifying guys they think could be walk-ons who could contribute to the team. I try to keep up with those guys."
Fans often fail to understand the impact that walk-ons can have on a program.
"Our walk-on program has really been an emphasis area for us," Cutcliffe said. "The first thing is, these young men are exceptional young men. They are Duke admits, players that are motivated, high quality individuals. So that's number one.
"Number two, for us to practice like we need to practice, we need some numbers. We're 10-15 below where you'd like to be. It takes its toll on a team. People think a season takes its toll on Duke over the years ... the last half of the year. Our players are not only playing on the kicking team, their playing against each other on kicking teams in practice to give us looks. So its just added reps. That really can help you the more young players you have in the program to play that roll."
Cutcliffe's walk-on program is starting to address that need. When the Blue Devils opened camp earlier this month, there were 16 walk-ons on the roster - 12 non-kickers. Smith expects four or five more to join the team after classes begin in September.
Several of the walk-ons are good enough to be more than practice fodder at some point in their career.
"I definitely want to play," Jeffrey Faris said. "Hopefully it will happen so I contribute some way on the field. But if that weren't to happen - if I were never to step on the field - I would look back and I'll nave no regrets about it. Just the things you learn. It's part of becoming a man, walking on the football team and being a part of it. There are countless things I've learned. I feel like I'm a different person than what I was in high school."
Faris is a 5-foot-11, 195-pound sophomore safety from Knoxville, Tenn. He was an outstanding prep player at Knoxville Catholic High School who was personally invited by Cutcliffe to come to Duke as a walk-on.
"A friend of mine was the strength coach at UT and I was working out that Monday morning at 5 before school," Faris said. "I had won an award that year for player of the week and I met [Coach Cutcliffe] and my family had met him a couple of times. I was planning to go to Harvard at the time to play football. But I came here on the first visit weekend and fell in love and couldn't wait to play for a person like Coach Cutcliffe."
Faris' choice of Duke over Harvard is typical of Duke's best walk-ons.
"The biggest - I wouldn't say problem - but the biggest thing we've got is that we have to compete against the Ivy League," Smith said.
"A lot of these kids we're inviting [as walk-ons] are academic kids were also kids who can play, so they get recruited by the Ivy League. Teddy Force is an offensive lineman who got recruited by Harvard, Princeton, Yale ... he came here. Preston Scott is probably one of our best walk-ons and he had offers to go to Harvard and Davidson. He was going to go to Davidson, but he came here."
Scott actually recruited himself.
"I got accepted to Duke in March [of 2008]," Scott said. "I had a friend who played on the football team down here [former Duke player Tony Jackson]. I ended up getting a few offers from some smaller schools ... no real D1-A. I still wanted to give it a shot. I called up Tony and got the contact information and got in touch with Terrell Smith and a few guys in the recruiting office. They guided me through it, just getting certain paperwork done and told me to be there for the first day of camp."
Scott, a 5-foot-10, 185-pound wide receiver, caught 39 passes for 977 yards and 11 touchdowns as a senior at Bishop Kearny High School in Rochester, N.Y. Of course, that's nothing compared to the numbers that freshman Georgie Kerber put up at Murphy (N.C.) High School. The 6-foot-2, 185-pound receiver set a western North Carolina prep record with 1,317 receiving yards and 22 touchdown catches and an overall state record with TD catches in eight consecutive games.
"He's going to be a pretty good walk-on," Smith said of Kerber. "He was another one who had a whole bunch of Ivy League offers."
The rules for "recruiting" walk-ons are very restrictive.
"It's hard because you can't really recruit them - you only get one phone call," he said. "So you basically have to e-mail them and send mail, but you only get one recruiting phone call, so you've got to make that one worthwhile."
Smith and the staff also comb the student body for qualified walk-ons.
"Once school starts, we e-mail incoming freshmen who maybe didn't send any film here," Smith said. "They'll come out and the coaches will conduct a walk-on tryout. Then we'll do the same thing in the spring, right before spring ball."
An important aspect of the walk-on program is the way walk-ons on treated by the staff. The NCAA limits the benefits that can be offered (for instance, no meals), but in every other way, walk-ons are treated like recruited players.
"Coach Cut knows all their names and we just treat them like they are family ... they're part of the team," Smith said.
"That's one thing that concerned me when I came here," Faris said. "I wanted to be treated like everybody else and I can honestly say that we are. We hang out all with scholarship guys all the time. My best friends are scholarship guys. I'm actually going to be living with [second-team quarterback] Sean Renfree. They don't treat us any different and the best player is going to play. If I'm the best player, I'll play ... I just have to be patient until the opportunity comes."
Scott shares that sentiment.
"I definitely feel that," the sophomore wide receiver said. "At the same time, a walk-on has to take steps themselves to be treated like a player. You can't just be that guy who's going to be soft. You have to come in and work hard. They definitely try to treat you like a player - they give you the same benefits and punishments as any scholarship player."
Neither Scott nor Faris were around to experience life as a redshirt before Cutcliffe's arrival. But they've gotten some feedback from their older teammates.
"Matt Pridemore was talking about it," Faris said. "He said that prior to Coach Cutcliffe, the walk-on program was pretty weak. Just guys who got accepted to Duke and came out for football and they didn't really care about it. But now you've got guys like Preston Scott and Georgie, just working their tails off and trying to get on the field anyway they can.
"Not only are some of these new guys Coach Cut are bringing in [as walk-ons] more talented, but I think the biggest difference is the commitment level. These guys don't come in with the mindset of being a walk-on. They come in with the mindset of those 85 scholarship guys. And they also understand their roles and maybe realize that their role might not be to start or to contribute on the field until their senior year. Until then, they need to help on the practice field ... maybe run scout quarterback ... anything that can help."
While Cutcliffe appreciates his walk-ons as valuable practice players, he is also hoping that a few of them turn out to be good enough to contribute on the field.
"That's one of my goals," he said. "We also certainly believe there are a number of young men who are quality walk-ons that they can find a way to help our football team - whether its special teams or on offense and defense. I'd like to get out our walk-on program quality enough that we could every year put a walk-on on scholarship, at least for that year. We've got some people that in that hunt."
Faris would like to think he's got a chance. He came out of spring practice listed as a second-team safety on the depth chart, plus he's in the mix to be a holder on placekicks. Unfortunately, an ankle sprain leading into preseason practice has set him back - temporarily.
"I just have to keep working hard," Faris said. "I haven't been full speed until this past week. I'm going to try every chance I get ... and they definitely give us chances."
Scott is willing to play any price to get on the field one day.
"I always try to do stuff with purpose," he said. "I came to play football. If that ends up being like a 'Rudy' situation and it's one snap at the end of my career - as long as I get that one snap, that's what I'm playing for."
At rival state schools, it's much easier to convince borderline college prospects to come to campus on their own and maybe win a scholarship later in their careers.
"It's easier because it's not as expensive to go to school there," Coach David Cutcliffe said. "You get a lot of people that come out to follow their dream. They have grown up fans. I've had as many as 50-plus walk-ons on our team [at Tennessee]. At Ole Miss it was very beneficial to us and we ended up with quite a few scholarship players out of that."
But when Cutcliffe arrived at Duke following the 2007 season, he found exactly one walk-on in the program.
"We did have two non-kickers, but one quit," said Terrell Smith, a holdover from the previous staff. Now, as assistant director of football relations, Smith oversees the new walk-on program that Cutcliffe set up.
"In the past, we didn't really try to go out and identify guys to walk-on," Smith explained. "Now we do. Most of those guys are guys coaches see on film. We see they have good grades and we feel like they could get in school here and also contribute to the team. So what the coaches do is, as they watch film, they are identifying guys they think could be walk-ons who could contribute to the team. I try to keep up with those guys."
Fans often fail to understand the impact that walk-ons can have on a program.
"Our walk-on program has really been an emphasis area for us," Cutcliffe said. "The first thing is, these young men are exceptional young men. They are Duke admits, players that are motivated, high quality individuals. So that's number one.
"Number two, for us to practice like we need to practice, we need some numbers. We're 10-15 below where you'd like to be. It takes its toll on a team. People think a season takes its toll on Duke over the years ... the last half of the year. Our players are not only playing on the kicking team, their playing against each other on kicking teams in practice to give us looks. So its just added reps. That really can help you the more young players you have in the program to play that roll."
Cutcliffe's walk-on program is starting to address that need. When the Blue Devils opened camp earlier this month, there were 16 walk-ons on the roster - 12 non-kickers. Smith expects four or five more to join the team after classes begin in September.
Several of the walk-ons are good enough to be more than practice fodder at some point in their career.
"I definitely want to play," Jeffrey Faris said. "Hopefully it will happen so I contribute some way on the field. But if that weren't to happen - if I were never to step on the field - I would look back and I'll nave no regrets about it. Just the things you learn. It's part of becoming a man, walking on the football team and being a part of it. There are countless things I've learned. I feel like I'm a different person than what I was in high school."
Faris is a 5-foot-11, 195-pound sophomore safety from Knoxville, Tenn. He was an outstanding prep player at Knoxville Catholic High School who was personally invited by Cutcliffe to come to Duke as a walk-on.
"A friend of mine was the strength coach at UT and I was working out that Monday morning at 5 before school," Faris said. "I had won an award that year for player of the week and I met [Coach Cutcliffe] and my family had met him a couple of times. I was planning to go to Harvard at the time to play football. But I came here on the first visit weekend and fell in love and couldn't wait to play for a person like Coach Cutcliffe."
Faris' choice of Duke over Harvard is typical of Duke's best walk-ons.
"The biggest - I wouldn't say problem - but the biggest thing we've got is that we have to compete against the Ivy League," Smith said.
"A lot of these kids we're inviting [as walk-ons] are academic kids were also kids who can play, so they get recruited by the Ivy League. Teddy Force is an offensive lineman who got recruited by Harvard, Princeton, Yale ... he came here. Preston Scott is probably one of our best walk-ons and he had offers to go to Harvard and Davidson. He was going to go to Davidson, but he came here."
Scott actually recruited himself.
"I got accepted to Duke in March [of 2008]," Scott said. "I had a friend who played on the football team down here [former Duke player Tony Jackson]. I ended up getting a few offers from some smaller schools ... no real D1-A. I still wanted to give it a shot. I called up Tony and got the contact information and got in touch with Terrell Smith and a few guys in the recruiting office. They guided me through it, just getting certain paperwork done and told me to be there for the first day of camp."
Scott, a 5-foot-10, 185-pound wide receiver, caught 39 passes for 977 yards and 11 touchdowns as a senior at Bishop Kearny High School in Rochester, N.Y. Of course, that's nothing compared to the numbers that freshman Georgie Kerber put up at Murphy (N.C.) High School. The 6-foot-2, 185-pound receiver set a western North Carolina prep record with 1,317 receiving yards and 22 touchdown catches and an overall state record with TD catches in eight consecutive games.
"He's going to be a pretty good walk-on," Smith said of Kerber. "He was another one who had a whole bunch of Ivy League offers."
The rules for "recruiting" walk-ons are very restrictive.
"It's hard because you can't really recruit them - you only get one phone call," he said. "So you basically have to e-mail them and send mail, but you only get one recruiting phone call, so you've got to make that one worthwhile."
Smith and the staff also comb the student body for qualified walk-ons.
"Once school starts, we e-mail incoming freshmen who maybe didn't send any film here," Smith said. "They'll come out and the coaches will conduct a walk-on tryout. Then we'll do the same thing in the spring, right before spring ball."
An important aspect of the walk-on program is the way walk-ons on treated by the staff. The NCAA limits the benefits that can be offered (for instance, no meals), but in every other way, walk-ons are treated like recruited players.
"Coach Cut knows all their names and we just treat them like they are family ... they're part of the team," Smith said.
"That's one thing that concerned me when I came here," Faris said. "I wanted to be treated like everybody else and I can honestly say that we are. We hang out all with scholarship guys all the time. My best friends are scholarship guys. I'm actually going to be living with [second-team quarterback] Sean Renfree. They don't treat us any different and the best player is going to play. If I'm the best player, I'll play ... I just have to be patient until the opportunity comes."
Scott shares that sentiment.
"I definitely feel that," the sophomore wide receiver said. "At the same time, a walk-on has to take steps themselves to be treated like a player. You can't just be that guy who's going to be soft. You have to come in and work hard. They definitely try to treat you like a player - they give you the same benefits and punishments as any scholarship player."
Neither Scott nor Faris were around to experience life as a redshirt before Cutcliffe's arrival. But they've gotten some feedback from their older teammates.
"Matt Pridemore was talking about it," Faris said. "He said that prior to Coach Cutcliffe, the walk-on program was pretty weak. Just guys who got accepted to Duke and came out for football and they didn't really care about it. But now you've got guys like Preston Scott and Georgie, just working their tails off and trying to get on the field anyway they can.
"Not only are some of these new guys Coach Cut are bringing in [as walk-ons] more talented, but I think the biggest difference is the commitment level. These guys don't come in with the mindset of being a walk-on. They come in with the mindset of those 85 scholarship guys. And they also understand their roles and maybe realize that their role might not be to start or to contribute on the field until their senior year. Until then, they need to help on the practice field ... maybe run scout quarterback ... anything that can help."
While Cutcliffe appreciates his walk-ons as valuable practice players, he is also hoping that a few of them turn out to be good enough to contribute on the field.
"That's one of my goals," he said. "We also certainly believe there are a number of young men who are quality walk-ons that they can find a way to help our football team - whether its special teams or on offense and defense. I'd like to get out our walk-on program quality enough that we could every year put a walk-on on scholarship, at least for that year. We've got some people that in that hunt."
Faris would like to think he's got a chance. He came out of spring practice listed as a second-team safety on the depth chart, plus he's in the mix to be a holder on placekicks. Unfortunately, an ankle sprain leading into preseason practice has set him back - temporarily.
"I just have to keep working hard," Faris said. "I haven't been full speed until this past week. I'm going to try every chance I get ... and they definitely give us chances."
Scott is willing to play any price to get on the field one day.
"I always try to do stuff with purpose," he said. "I came to play football. If that ends up being like a 'Rudy' situation and it's one snap at the end of my career - as long as I get that one snap, that's what I'm playing for."
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