...and this is exactly why I keep saying the walk-on program we used to have at TCU was the backbone of everything good about this program. You watch this Brendan Sorsby mess at Texas Tech with the Big 12 suing and the Oklahoma AG getting involved and the Texas AG fighting back and you realize nobody has any idea what loyalty means anymore. That kid gambled on his own games and they are fighting over whether he can still play? Back in the 1998 Sun Bowl season we had walk-ons who would have never dreamed of doing something like that because they knew every rep they got was a gift they earnd in practice.
We had a kid from Aledo back in the late 80s who showed up unrecruited, paid his own way for two years, and ended up starting at defensive tackle in the 1991 season against Baylor. That is what I miss. The walk-on culture at TCU was special because we were always the underdog program. We had to develop players because nobody wanted to come here. Coach Franchione understood that better than anyone. He would find these small-town Texas kids who had something to prove and he would turn them into contributors.
Now you got 50 transfers at Oklahoma State and 43 at Colorado and three of our own portal losses in one week and the whole thing feels like a free agency period instead of college football. The walk-on is dying because why would a kid bust his tail for two years in practice when he can just enter the portal and find a scholarship somewhere else? I tell you what, the 1999 team that went to the Mobile Alabama Bowl had seven walk-ons on the two-deep and we were proud of that. Now the roster turns over every single offseason.
This Sorsby situation just proves to me that the whole sport has lost its way. The Big 12 is suing its own member school. The attorneys general of two states are threatening each other. And a kid who admitted to gambling on college football games is still trying to play. Back when we had walk-ons who would run through a brick wall for a single game rep, we never had problems like this. The culture was different. It was better. And I do not see it coming back.