You have th go a little deeper.
Start with the fact we have 85 scholarship players and understand that most walk-ons are necessary practice bodies, maybe 1 or 2 grows enough to earn a scholarship, but most last a year or two and are gone.
So, if we have lost 35 players it means we have 50 scholarship players left. Then you have to subtract those that may have been injured throughout the year and aren’t available.
Out of those remaining 47-48 players you have 15 or so FR that have been RS this year, so that leaves just over 30 players that have been active and may have participated in a game this season.
It’s simply not in the best interest of the safety of the players to ask walk-ons and RS players to go play 50-60 snaps in their very first live action game. It’s not like “gosh, they played in HS, so what’s the big deal?”. You are asking 18 year olds that haven’t really gotten a lot of coaching attention all season to go line up against 22-23 year old men with 4-5 years of training at this level.
Then you have to look at the available players by position group. Of the 30 some players that have some experience and have to play the majority of the snaps, do you have enough to cover the required 22 positions? Doesn’t work if 8 of them are safeties, unless it’s a good idea to put a safety at DE to get run over by a 290lb tackle all day.
I understand the kids would play, it’s what they do. They don’t want to come off the field when they’re injured. However, it’s the responsibility of the program to not put them in unnecessary danger.
