College football walk-ons are in jeopardy. What do Big Ten coaches think of uncertain future?

As Bret Bielema closed his high school career in Prophetstown, Ill., none of the four Big Ten programs located within a 180-mile radius of his western Illinois family farm gave him more than a cursory look.

Overlooked but undeterred, Bielema showed up at Iowa with his older brother, Bart, whose wide frame convinced Hawkeyes coach Hayden Fry that Bret had growth potential in his 190-pound pre-college frame. Fry invited Bielema as a walk-on in 1988, and he not only earned a scholarship, but he became a starting nose guard and team captain.

Bielema, now head coach at Illinois, has a soft spot for non-scholarship players, but it’s based on practicality. For developmental programs that have fewer than 10 four-star prospects, there’s not much of an athletic difference between low-level three-star recruits and many walk-ons. But the House v. NCAA settlement calls for an end of scholarship limits and instead installs roster limits for each sport. For football, that probably means a hard cap and a smaller number of players than the vague allowance currently in place.

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“You hate to eliminate opportunities,” Bielema said. “I literally went to the University of Iowa because of the walk-on program. I’m from Illinois. My best opportunity was some Division II, DIII schools. But Iowa had a tradition, and that’s why I chose to go there.

“Because of that influence, when I went to Kansas State, when I went to Wisconsin, I always looked at that number (of walk-ons), and then when I came to Illinois we grew our roster. I believe in my first year there was 110. And now we grew to 120.”

Although the future for walk-ons looks unclear, nothing officially is decided, Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman said.

“I think it’s premature to comment on anything specific to roster limits or what the implications of those decisions will be for any particular sport at this point in time,” said Whitman, the NCAA Division I Council chairman.

Programs currently disburse 85 scholarships for football with most power conference rosters ranging between 110 and 125 players. Developmental programs in the Midwest like Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska and Illinois thrive and survive on lower-level recruits and those who don’t receive an immediate scholarship. Walk-ons are synonymous with Nebraska football tradition, while Wisconsin and Iowa regularly turn non-scholarship players into multiyear starters and NFL Draft picks.

Bielema was instrumental in churning out some of the best walk-on collections in recent Big Ten annals. After his playing career ended, Bielema became Iowa’s linebackers coach and had walk-on Dallas Clark in his group. Clark later switched to tight end and became a consensus All-American and a first-round draft pick.

Dallas Clark was selected 24th in the 2003 NFL Draft by the Indianapolis Colts. (Joseph Cress / Iowa City Press-Citizen / USA Today)

In 2004 — Bielema’s first year as Wisconsin’s defensive coordinator — safety Jim Leonhard finally earned a scholarship after consecutive first-team All-Big Ten selections. Leonhard picked up his third straight league honor that fall, and his 21 interceptions are tied for the most in Wisconsin history.

As Wisconsin’s head coach from 2006 to 2012, Bielema brought in some of college football’s top walk-ons over the last two decades. The day before linebacker Joe Schobert was scheduled to leave as a walk-on at North Dakota, Bielema matched that invitation. Schobert was named a first-team All-American in 2015. Jared Abbrederis didn’t earn a scholarship right away but became a two-time first-team Big Ten wide receiver. The biggest coup of all was former Central Michigan tight end J.J. Watt, who initially walked on, moved to defensive end and turned into an NFL all-decade performer.

“I would say that there are three things that are usually in common,” Bielema said. “They’re usually underrecruited, underdeveloped or undersized, and all three of those things can change overnight. The person is now in a position to be developed. Undersized people grow, certain guys grow 2, 3, 4 inches in college and you’re like, ‘Holy Jesus, I just turned in something different.’ Then underrecruited is just a choice of the people that recruited them.”

J.J. Watt was a two-star recruit out of high school but went on to become a first-round NFL Draft pick. (Darren Yamashita / USA Today)

Iowa also thrives on non-scholarship performers. Not counting specialists, the Hawkeyes could start three players this fall who began their careers as walk-ons. Every year since 2016, the Hawkeyes have started a safety who enrolled without a scholarship. Former walk-on Joe Evans, who now plays for the Baltimore Ravens, finished his career with 28 sacks.

“That has a lot to do with the coaches and the developmental program that we have here,” said Evans, an edge rusher. “You look at me and you look at Bret (Bielema), right? I came out of high school, I was, what, a buck-95 maybe and then in two years, I was able to get on the field at 240 and I was running faster, jumping higher than I ever have and 10 times stronger.”

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Walk-ons now have more benefits, which allows them greater opportunities. Before NCAA deregulation in 2014, walk-ons were not allowed to eat training table meals with scholarship players except on game days. Food then became an area for investment at Iowa. Among Big Ten football programs, only Ohio State, Michigan and Rutgers spent more on food than Iowa in fiscal year 2023, according to numbers obtained by The Athletic through open-records requests.

In addition, Iowa competes aggressively for walk-ons against FCS programs offering full rides.

“What we try and tell walk-ons, if you come here, you’re going to have every opportunity,” Iowa recruiting director Tyler Barnes said. “It’s not that the scholarship guy has to play; just look at our roster in a given year. There are always four to five guys who are on scholarship now that we’re starting or who are playing key roles. I think it’s just our mindset of how we recruit those guys and how we go about it.”

It’s undetermined how shifting from a scholarship cap to roster limits would impact programs like Iowa, Illinois or Wisconsin. But the schools are prepared for changes. Iowa assistant head coach Seth Wallace worked previously in Division II at Valdosta (Ga.) State, where the program could provide some players with full rides and give partial scholarships to others. He anticipates that type of system coming to Division I.

“Eventually what this thing’s going to look like is you’re going to get X amount of dollars to run your program and spread it across however you want to,” Wallace said. “It’s funny how it’s taken all these years to come back to what has been working at the Division II and the FCS level, where they’ve taken that pool of money and just use it as a salary cap.

“Us as coaches, I think we’re OK with it because there is need in some cases to change that dollar amount between semesters.”

(Top photo of Bret Bielema: Ron Johnson / USA Today)