Walk-On's Helping Athletes Take Advantage of NIL Era, Coming to Starkville

The company former Mississippi State quarterback Dak Prescott is a franchisee with in the Dallas market is making a splash in Name, Image and Likeness era and his coming to Starkville, Mississippi in the near future.

Walk-On's Sports Bistreaux announced its "Walk-On of the Week" program, which will award NIL deals to walk-ons all over the nation, earlier this month.

We spoke with Walk-On's founder and CEO Brandon Landry on what the program means and the chance it gives several different athletes, including so many of those who have made sacrifices and been overlooked.

"It's really cool being able to align with athletes that share our same purpose... we have our Walk-On's family of athletes, our partners like Drew Brees who has been with our company for over eight years now, we have Dak Prescott who is a franchisee in the Dallas market. Devin White is a franchisee in the Tampa market. We've also got Grant Morgan, who was former walk-on a the University of Arkansas. Now, he's an All-American. It's good to have a kid like that who embodies everything we stand for. All of them have some type of underdog story."

Walk-On's has already been in communication with a host of athletes about the program, which launched around mid-August, and the expectations for it are high.

"We want to do at least one per week and really, even more than that," Landry said. "We just launched, and we've got hundreds upon hundreds of kids that are reaching out saying, 'hey, I'm a walk-on' and telling us stories of how they might work a couple of jobs, how they got turned down when they wanted to be a scholarship player at a school. Underdog stories like that and what drives them. The reception has been awesome."

So, where does current Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott fit into all of this? He's a perfect illustration of what the company stands for, according to Landry.

"Dak is one of us. He's an NFL quarterback who makes a lot of money, but he had to do things the hard way," Landry said. "Louisiana kid who went to Mississippi State and has had to battle a lot personally and professionally. He lives with integrity and shows empathy and displays grit. Everybody saw his injury last year and he just worked his tail off over the offseason. He's a big name and it's great to have him affiliated with us because of that, but more importantly because he aligns with our values and our Walk-On's way."

Prescott wasn't hotly recruited by LSU, and shared his thoughts on the process he went through with the school in an interview with Graham Bensinger.

"LSU, go to the camp going into my senior year, they turn me off,” Prescott said, per 247Sports. “Go to another camp, I believe, again, ‘Hey, you want to come play tight end? You’re athletic, maybe we’ll offer you as a tight end.’ No, I’m gonna play quarterback. And then I go into my senior year, and have a really, really good year, and LSU tries to offer me at that point but I’m already committed to Mississippi State. I wanted to be a man of my word. I grew up a Texas fan, I didn’t grow up an LSU fan. So it was even better at that time to shut up all the LSU fans and kind of put in their faces, ‘I don’t want to play for y’all. I want to come back and beat y’all.’”

Speaking of MSU and Prescott, Walk-On's itself will be coming to Starkville in the very near future, and is anticipated to be a popular place with the locals.

"Starkville is a great college town, a great sports town with a good appreciation for food," Landry said. "We have great franchisees who went to Mississippi State."

Unsurprisingly, Prescott played a role in the decision to put a location in the town he played his college ball in.

"Of course Dak was a big part of pushing the Starkville location as well," Landry said. "He was like 'man, Starkville needs something like a Walk-Ons. Ever since the day we went and looked at locations over a year ago, putting it out on Twitter, we've gotten tons of response from the Starkville area. We're excited to bring a location there and we should break ground any day now. We're looking at opening in mid-spring, that's the goal."