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Walls headed to New Mexico StateChillicothe Gazette (OH)
Thursday, February 7, 2008
By LANCE CRANMER
Assistant Local Editor
There will be Walls along the border between the United States and Mexico standing six feet, six inches tall.
Soon to be located in Las Cruces, New Mexico, this Walls will come fully equipped with one cannon, suited for firing rockets deep into the desert sky.
Trevor Walls, Waverly High School's All-Ohio senior quarterback, made his announcement official Wednesday, signing on as the quarterback of the future for the New Mexico State University Aggies.
"It's exactly what I'm looking for," Walls said, referring to NMSU coach Hal Mumme's pro-style passing offense.
Mumme, formerly a coach at the University of Kentucky in the late 1990s, became aware of the quarterback when a friend of the Walls family recommended Trevor to Aggies assistant coach Earnest Wilson.
"Coach Wilson had (QB's coach) Matt Mumme and Hal Mumme both watch (a highlight tape)," Walls said. "And I guess they liked it."
Mumme flew Walls to New Mexico and gave him a tour of the facilities.
"It was warm. I loved it. It's a nice campus," Walls said. "It's beautiful. I loved the set up."
It also helped that NMSU offered the degrees that the 4.0 student is interested in pursuing.
"They've got the engineering degree. I don't know which one I want to go into, but they've got both of the ones I was thinking about," Walls said, before quickly switching back to football talk. "And I like their offense. It's the kind of offense I want to be in."
"Mumme told him they have two running plays in their offense," Waverly head coach Rusty Wright said. "They run on the field before the game and they run off it when it's over."
"That's what he said to me the first time I talked to him," said Walls.
A pocket passer who threw for more that 2,000 yards in each of his final two seasons with the Tigers, Walls is excited to enter a pass-oriented offense.
"It's not going to be too much different. We'll run a little more no-huddle at New Mexico State," Walls said. "He talked to me about running the no-huddle, giving me three plays and making checks on one. I did a little bit of that in high school, but not much."
The only wrinkle in the plan is the availability of scholarships.
Somewhere along the line in his recruiting process, Walls picked up a false label of being slow on his feet, despite running a 4.8 in the 40 at 6-6 and 220 pounds.
School after school from Vanderbilt to Bowling Green to Miami courted Walls heavily, but never made an offer.
"Nobody pulled the trigger," he said. "They all backed out."
When New Mexico State entered the picture just a few weeks back, the program had already dispensed all of its scholarships for the incoming class.
While it is not finalized yet, it appears Walls will be given what is called a "gray shirt."
He will be officially signed on as a member of the Aggies, but he will not be eligible to participate with the team this fall.
"(Mumme) said either I report in the spring or I report in the (next) fall," Walls said. "I can't do anything with the team, but I can still work out with a trainer. I can take six hours and still learn the offense."
That also means that tuition for the first year will be out-of-pocket. Walls, and surely his family as well, hopes that those costs can be equaled out with academic scholarship money.
In this case, though, the end will certainly be worth the means - even if it requires going to school 2,000 miles from home.
"My parents don't like me going far away, but if I'm happy, then they're happy," Walls said. "Wherever I feel comfortable, I know they'll back me all the way."