Many fans mistakenly assume that precisely because the Bryant Scholarship is considered “institutional aid,” if a walk-on football player uses the Bryant Scholarship to pay his expenses--then sees action during his first two years on campus, he must count against Alabama’s scholarship numbers.
If the athlete was considered “recruited” by the NCAA, that is correct. If not, it is not.
King continued, “For a recruited walk-on, a student-athlete who was recruited by UA and who receives institutional financial aid granted without regard in any degree to athletics ability (i.e. the Bryant Scholarship), that student-athlete does not have to be counted until he engages in varsity intercollegiate competition.
“If the student-athlete does engage in varsity intercollegiate competition, the student-athlete becomes a counter.”
Right, that’s precisely what many knowledgeable fans already know. But King continues.
And here is the part many fans should pay close attention to.
King said, “If it is a ‘non-recruited’ student-athlete that receives the Bryant Scholarship, the student-athlete would not count, regardless of intercollegiate competition.”
Note the two phrases: “would not count” and “regardless of intercollegiate competition.”
King is saying that if the walk-on in question is judged to have been “non-recruited” by the NCAA, then he can play whenever he wants--even in the first game of his first semester--and not count against Alabama’s scholarship numbers.
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The difficult distinction for many fans, of course, is whether the athlete in question is “recruited” or “non-recruited.”
Who judges that? The NCAA.
But actually the rules for that designation are fairly straight-forward. Before walk-ons are allowed to participate in practice, the Tide staff goes over them carefully, and normally the walk-on athlete signs a form acknowledging the circumstances of his recruitment (or rather non-recruitment) by the Alabama coaches.