Nebraska was the first, the leader, to develop a walk-on program. All the big old farm boys in Nebraska wanted to play football at the university, so coach Dr. Tom Osborne let them on the team as walkons. Nebraska traveled with way more players than anyone else, and these 300 pound behemoths played in the 4th quarter and wore the opponent down. We (VT) were one of them in the Druckenmiller-led 1995 Orange bowl. That's when Beamer's eyes were opened, and he said "praise the Lord," and he built Tech's walkon program, a huge innovation at the time . We had a few walk-ons play in the NFL. DE Bill Engleberger was one notable walk-on who played in the NFL.