Nebraska Football: Getting to Fall Camp Walk-ons and Scholarship Players Both “Get What You Deserve” Huskers News

If you follow Nebraska Football’s social media at all then you likely have stumbled upon the weekly Elite List which they pump out which is a list of Nebraska players who have met the metrics for their Elite List.

I am not sure what those metrics are but they have to do with Body Composition, Hydration and Academics among many other things as Coach Rhule stated in the press conference on Tuesday.

Here is the Elite List from Week 7:

What was of most interest to me which came out of the press conference on Tuesday was Matt Rhule’s statement that trying to make or not make Elite List has propelled some players, including walk-ons, forward in terms of development.

The list has also propelled some walk-ons to make it to fall camp when they otherwise might not have.

The list has ALSO lead to holding some back as Coach Rhule stated that some scholarship players did not make fall camp in part because of choices they made (outside of being injured).

As Rhule said, “You get what you deserve.”

Here is the whole quote from the press conference.

“That has nothing to do with me. We started that way back at Temple. It’s all based upon the performance staff, but they do factor in behavior. They do factor in academics. They factor all those things into the process. The only thing I ever do with Corey (Campbell) is I’m always pushing it to be less and less and less. To me, everyone on our team is working hard. Everyone on our team, if they did this summer, they are elite. So what you’re talking about is the top 10% of the top 10%. It’s not a participation trophy. There’s some guys, walk-on guys, I was a walk-on so I feel very comfortable saying walk-on guys, Noah Bustard and Grant Buda who propelled themselves in the camp by making the elite list multiple times. So, you’ll see scholarship players that aren’t in camp, non-injury related, you’ll see walk-ons that are in camp. This is a new day and age of football. We’ve always done it this way. You get what you deserve. That doesn’t mean that guys don’t deserve. It’s just other guys out-perform them maybe. So, it could be your body weight, it could be your hydration everyday, they take all this into account. Corey and the rest of the performance staff meet. They put the list out. I see it when it goes on Twitter. They used to send it to me. I won’t even look at it because I don’t want to affect it. I want them to make the decision based upon what they see, and the great thing is when you see guys that maybe weren’t elite in the winter becoming more elite, it’s pretty cool.”