Gets me about this whole modern era of college football? The walk on culture is dead. Completely dead. And nobody even talks about it. I remember when we had kids who showed up to fall camp with no scholarship, no promise of anything except a chance to earn a spot. They paid their own way for a semester or two, lived in those cramped dorm rooms over by the Kohl Center, ate cold pizza after practice, and just grinded.
Back in the 1990s under Barry Alvarez, we built this program on walk ons. That was our identity. We were the school where a kid from Waukesha or Stevens Point or Rice Lake could show up, outwork everybody, and eventually run through that tunnel on Saturday. I remember watching kids who never got a single star next to their name become captains, become starters, become guys who made plays in the Rose Bowl. That was the Wisconsin way. That was what made us different from Ohio State and Michigan. We didnt buy our roster. We grew it. We developed it. We earned it.
Now everything is about the transfer portal and NIL and who can pay the most money to a 17 year old. The walk on is a dying breed. Why would a kid spend two years eating ramen noodles and getting beat up on scout team when he can jump in the portal and get a scholarship offer from some school he never even visited? The whole concept of earning your stripes is gone. And thats the thing that hurts most. We used to have walk ons who would bleed red and white because they chose to be here. They werent recruited. They werent promised anything. They just wanted to be Badgers.
I look at our roster now and I wonder how many of these kids actually grew up dreaming of playing in Camp Randall. How many of them would be here if the NIL check wasnt waiting for them? The portal killed loyalty, but it also killed the whole idea of building a program from the ground up. We used to have a walk on program that produced NFL players. Guys who came in as noboides and left as legends. Now its all about who can assemble the most talented roster through the portal in one offseason. Thats not Wisconsin football. Thats not what we built.
The summer dead period has me thinking about this more than usual. All these recruiting rankings and portal moves and NIL deals being announced. Nobody is talking about the kid who is going to show up in August with no scholarship, no fanfare, just a dream and a work ethic. Those kids made us who we are. And I am afraid we are never getting that back.