It's a potential catch-22 for the sport that features a starting 11 on each side of the field.
College football is moving closer to a potential reality that allows member programs at the sport's highest, Football Bowls Subdivision level to fully fund 105-person scholarship rosters.
The current limit is 85, and teams can carry up to 120 with walk-on players typically comprising a critical, if unheralded, component of the ecosystem.
As the sport pushes into the future on the heels of Judge Claudia Wilken's preliminary approval last month of the House vs. NCAA settlement, revenue sharing and potential roster expansion could arrive as soon as next summer.
But those 20 extra scholarships could also mean the end of walk-on programs throughout the sport.
Count Auburn coach Hugh Freeze among those in vehement opposition to such a course.
"I think it would absolutely be an atrocity for there not to be [a walk-on program in college football,]" Freeze said on Wednesday's SEC teleconference. "Some of the greatest stories that we've heard of and that I've actually been a part of is just seeing the successes of walk-ons.
"Whether it's them going from a walk-on to a scholarship or just the success that they have after football."
Freeze, echoing sentiments from another coach this week telling FootballScoop that some of his program's greatest Name, Image and Likeness resources, as well as help in capital investments for facilities come from walk-ons, believes a move that eliminates some of a program's most unsung contributors could be a path that eliminates some of its most generous benefactors.
"They (walk-ons) are typically probably more of the ones that come back and give back more, because of what they learned and what it meant to them," Freeze said.
"I just ... Man, the thought of that occurring doesn't sit well with any coaches."