AE, the Clemson roster online..go to each OL profile..it states whether walkon or not...I removed all walkons...added up and then added OL coming in from rivals is where I thought I counted 5....If its 4 then its 17 not 18....maybe I am totally messing up...but I counted 18 originally if its 4 then its 17. Also sometimes recruiting lists a guy as DL but he is OL vice versa
We may have made the strategic calculation to count on walkons a little more than other teams. Since we don't oversign, which is admirable, imo, we need very low attrition and very high pan out rate. The decision may be made easier in the fact that some of these pwo's are a very small step down, if that, from some of the guys we're giving full rides to. This allows us to fill out our depth numbers without taking a hit to our scholly totals.
This strategy only works when attrition is low and pan out rate is high. It's a razor's edge we walk but the alternative is less appealing to the coaches - taking schollies from other positions.
Once in a while you get a walkon that becomes a major contributor or even starter (Bedford). Typically, you get guys who are there to provide limited, but valuable, minutes in a backup capacity.
Another thing to consider, our coaches, especially the big man, has been running this exact offense for a very long time and the total scholly number haven't changed much, if any, during that entire time span. I'm sure finding that perfect number mix throughout the offense is not some issue that is taken lightly and I'm sure it's something that has been tweaked and experimented with many times over the years. It's certainly not easy especially when you consider you're not just looking at overall numbers per group, but numbers have to be spread out among classes, as well. The number of available schollies year to year varies greatly as well throwing in another curve ball that disallows a basic formulaic approach.
The crop of available OL's is wild card year to year, too.
