Alabama football going viral for walk-on move every college should consider

With FBS college football programs expanding the rosters from 85 to 105 scholarship players, there are many ways to fill those additional 20 slots. Obviously, some teams are taking in larger recruiting classes and others are hitting the transfer portal for extra bodies and even digging into the lower divisions to fill parts of the roster. 

However, those top-five recruiting classes and big-time transfer kids can stretch a budget and the lack of extra depth beyond the 105-player limit is felt on the practice squads and scout teams. So, Alabama is going to tap into the 25,000-plus full-time students that are enrolled at the school. 

Nothing but good can come from Alabama's open tryouts

This brings back the memories of the famous walk-on program at Nebraska, which might not exactly have been open tryouts, but there were still student-athletes that were willing to forgo offers at other programs, usually in lower divisions, to be walk-on players for the Cornhuskers. PBS even did a documentary on it about 15 years ago.

There's no downside to doing this and it's a great opportunity to get the student body excited at the thoughts of fulfilling a dream. I imagine a large percentage of the students at Alabama fantasize about putting on the Crimson Tide uniform and running out of the tunnel in front of over 100,000 screaming fans at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

There will be many people trying out, many of whom probably played high school football at Hewitt-Trussville, Clay-Chalkville, Saraland, Mountain Brook or any other of the many blue-chip programs around the state, and they are going to be looking for one more moment in the sun....the chance they never received due to any one of many circumstances.

And who knows, maybe Kalen DeBoer and his staff will find a couple of guys that offer enough or have the necessary skill set to come back for the offseason program and the spring camp. It never hurts to look and when you've got a student body at large at Alabama's, there's a good chance that one diamond will emerge from the rough.