When I first saw the news, I had a slight case of Julius Jones redux, circa 2002. You remember, Tyrone Willingham's first season, the 8-0 start, accomplished without the star running back/future 2nd round draft choice of the Dallas Cowboys, who was in Arizona for the year trying to make up the grades to get back into Notre Dame.
Is Walls that good? It's debatable - especially considering that he would have been just starting his junior year. Many do consider him to be Notre Dame's first lock-down cornerback and potential first day draft pick at that position since Bobby Taylor back in the mid-1990s.
According to various recruiting publications, he was the highest rated CB coming out of high school to sign with Notre Dame in recent memory. He did line up opposite Calvin Johnson (2nd overall pick in the NFL Draft that year) in his very first game. And of course, he was a 12 game starter last year as a sophmore, leading the team with 9 pass breakups, something neither of his projected replacements can claim.
Optimists point out that both likely candidates for the newly-vacated CB position (Raeshon McNeil or Gary Gray) are highly-touted themselves and probably more than capable of filling in. Optimists would also point out that the slate of QBs/WRs/passing attacks Notre Dame faces this year might be down a notch from previous years.
In other words, it might not hurt the team when it comes to the bottom line in terms of wins and losses.
I do think Notre Dame will miss his big-play ability, as seen in the following clips. In a season of few highlights, it's very telling when a defensive back has two of the biggest:
Now watch #2 turn the corner here against Stanford. There's no other way to say this: the boy can fly (it's only fitting that the best TD of the year came from the defense... and of course ironically didn't count):
In addition to #2 (Walls), you can scratch #1 off your 2008 roster as well: yesterday Notre Dame also announced senior WR D.J. Hord would be transferring. Hord was arguably the highest rated player in Charlie Weis' first recruiting class. Sadly, there are no video clips to show of Hord and that probably tells you why he is transferring: he never really developed into the player that we all hoped he would be. Part of that was due to the torn ACL he suffered as a sophmore but even before then, he was the 2nd best WR in his two-WR class (behind David Grimes).
We can only wish Hord and Walls the best of luck on their roads ahead (and hope Walls' road leads him back to the Irish).
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