@Dadof3 posted:if you don’t get an athletic scholarship are you considered a walk on? On average, how many kids on scholarship get cut in the fall?
Yes, that's the definition of a walk on. Back before the pandemic, there was often discussion on this site of terms like "preferred walk-on", I don't know if that is still thrown around. The idea (which had no legal basis) was that they weren't getting athletic money, but were "guaranteed" a spot on the spring roster.
it can be the case that a player has a really good academic or state-run scholarship and doesn't need athletic money. Technically, they are also walk-ons. Therefore, they are more at risk for being cut.
If a player has athletic money from the university (not from an NIL collective), he has signed a National Letter of Intent (NLI) which says that he is guaranteed to have that money for XX years, unless certain criteria are met (crime, academic ineligibility, etc.).
A school can't break those NLI contracts. But, a coach can tell a scholarship player, "You won't get any playing time if you stay," hoping that the player leaves on his own. Is that being "cut"? If the player refuses to leave, then the coach can't give that scholarship money to anyone else. But the kid's baseball career is probably over.