PJP Ath Dylan Walker opens up about his commitment to Bowling Green @djwalker317 @goldenpantherFB

Tagged under: District 1, News, Recruiting

Billy Splain | July 3, 2019

Usually we write about what a player has done in the previous season when we do an article about a recruit committing to a college program.  Dylan Walker has no game highlights to write about.  He did transfer to PJP from Boone, but what he didn’t do was play football for the Golden Panthers.

Last summer before the season began, Dylan tore up his knee forcing him to sit out his junior season.  That didn’t worry the coaching staff at Bowling Green.  They’d seen enough of him as a sophomore and at their camp this spring. They were confident enough in his recovery progress to give him a chance to play for the Falcons next year. Dylan took them up on their offer and committed to BG on June 27.

We caught up with Dylan and asked him about the process, his injury and how he ended up at BG:

PFN: How long have you played football?

Dylan: I did not start playing football until the sixth grade. My dad was a huge football fan, and he played linebacker at Villanova, so I wanted to try it out. Before I began playing, I would watch the Philadelphia Eagles when they would play, but I didn’t really know all that much about football. It did not take long before it became my favorite sport and a sport that I wanted to play in college also. It became the one thing that I worked harder for than anything else. I knew where I wanted to end up, and I also knew how hard I would have to push myself to get there. This is the first step in reaching my goals.

PFN: Why did you choose to commit to the BG Falcons?

Dylan: There is a very unique atmosphere around the Falcons that you won’t find many other places. Something that I would hear continuously was “it’s a family thing,” and it’s true. The staff at Bowling Green treats their team as a family, and they value each kid as more than just a member of their team. As much as they want to develop their players to be the best in the world, they also want to develop them to be the best men off the field because one day if football is no longer a part of my life, or any of my future teammates’ lives, the coaches want to have taught us something more than football. Something we can carry with us no matter where life takes us.

PFN: You were injured last season. How did it play out that you got the offer from BG?

Dylan: At the beginning of last season, I began to get recruited by the staff at Boston College while Coach Loeffler was still the Offensive Coordinator there. After last season, when he took the job as the head coach at Bowling Green State University, Coach Louie Addazio began recruiting me to play Tight End for him and for Coach Loeffler. They had already known that I did not play in my junior year due to injury, but they told me that they had no worries about my recovery. They saw how I played in my sophomore year as a Wide Receiver and they saw my size going into the end of my junior year, so they decided that I would be a good fit to play Tight End for them.

PFN: How is your recovery going?

Dylan: My recovery has been going really well. I am now just over a year out from my surgery, and my knee has never felt better. Since I was not able to play last season, all of my focus was in rehabilitating my knee. I would work with my Physical Therapist multiple times a week, and every day after school I would work with the Trainer at my high school. I knew that if I could not play in my junior year, I wanted to do everything that I could to make sure that my knee would be ready for my senior season. My knee has been feeling great since December, and I have been fully cleared to play football with my team since the end of March. I have been competing in 7v7s with my high school team, and my knee has been holding up very well.

PFN: Why commit early?

Dylan: I decided to commit before my senior season because I thought that this was a great opportunity for myself. I thought that especially after missing my junior year with a knee injury, I was lucky to even find an opportunity like this. To be able to play Division 1 football for the coaches that Coach Loeffler has brought in with him is something that I would’ve only dreamed of a few years ago, but know that I have actually been given the chance to do so, I had to take it. They have a plan to be a powerhouse in the MAC in the very near future, and that is something that I wanted to be a part of. Overall, my family and I believed that this was the smartest option for me as a player and as a student.

PFN: Who was your biggest influence at BGSU, who recruited you?

Dylan: The biggest influence that recruited me at BGSU was probably Coach Louie Addazio. He is the Tight Ends coach there at Bowling Green, and he is also the coach that I would talk to the most. Him and I built a type of bond that I would love to have with my position coach for the next 4 or 5 years after I graduate high school. Not far behind him was Coach Loeffler. Both of these coaches together made me feel as though my abilities as a Tight End were very valuable to them, and there is a lot to be said about playing for a team that really wants you. This relates back to how I said it was a family thing at BG. They showed me the type of environment that I would be in for my time at BGSU, and that was somewhere I could see myself being very successful with these coaches.

PFN: What are they getting in player like you?

Dylan: In a player like me, I believe that Bowling Green is getting someone who is relentless and someone who is smart. I am someone who will stop at nothing to work harder than everyone else around me. I am very competitive, and I have been taught from a young age that if I am not the best player on the field, then I need to work ten times harder than the guy that is. If I am the best player on the field, I need to work twenty times harder than the man behind me just to make sure he doesn’t catch up. At the same time, I am a smart player. I know the game well, and I believe that the mental aspect of football is just as important as the physical aspect. Studying plays and watching film are very important to my gameplay. Knowing how to read a defense and understand what they are most likely going to do before the snap of the ball is something that I work really hard to learn about each of my opponents. I believe that there are a lot of great athletes out there, but the best athletes are the ones that know how to manipulate the game by being smarter than the other team.

PFN: What was the recruiting process like for you?

Dylan: My recruiting process was probably a little bit different than most people out there in my class. Obviously I did not play my junior year, and transferring schools along with that kind of made me fall off the map for a little bit. Every school that I did end up talking to would always ask about my junior film, and I would have to explain the situation with my injury. I knew that missing my junior year would make it very hard for teams to evaluate me, especially because my sophomore year was spent as a Wide Receiver as opposed to a Tight End. The coaching staff at Bowling Green had no doubts about my knee, and they had a lot of confidence in my abilities as a player. I think that was one thing that was very unique to Bowling Green. Even without seeing me play since my sophomore year, they were confident that I was the right fit for their program.

PFN: What position were you recruited for?

Dylan: I was recruited to play Tight End. Prior to my injury, I was used primarily as a Wide Receiver. Now that I had a year that I wasn’t able to play, I spent a lot of time in the weight room trying to get bigger and stronger. I put on a lot of weight in order to transition myself into a versatile Tight End that has the ability to run routes and catch like a Wide Receiver, but also has the ability to block like a lineman.

PFN: Do you know what you’d like to study?

Dylan: So far, I am still undecided as to what I would like to study. I feel very comfortable going into Bowling Green undecided, especially after speaking with their academic advisor. They have a lot of different majors, and if I am still undecided after my senior year of high school, I can work on narrowing it down based on the classes that I really enjoy at BGSU.

PFN: What do you think is the most exciting thing about the Falcons program?

Dylan: I think that the most exciting things about this program right now are the coaching staff that has been brought in and the recruiting class that has been put together. There are a lot of really good coaches on this staff that Coach Loeffler has brought in. They have a very long history of coaching for great teams and developing a lot of great players. The recruiting class put together by Coach Loeffler is very impressive too. He came in as a new head coach in the MAC and he has put together the highest rated recruiting class in that conference. I believe that the program is on a rise very quickly to be able to do great things.

PFN: Tell everyone out there in the America you’re about to serve something they’d never know about you until you told them:

Dylan: One thing that I think most people don’t know about me is that I used to do Tae Kwon Do when I was very young. I didn’t do it for that long, and I stopped way before I reached a black belt. I do genuinely think that doing this at such a young age helped me in my future. I became very flexible and I gained very good balance from it. That was also the first time I ever competed in anything, so that built up the competitiveness that I have today in football.

PFN: Who is the person who most influenced you in your football career?

Dylan: In my football career, it is hard to choose one person that has influenced me the most over the past six years. I have had so many different coaches and I have played with a lot of teammates that have helped me to grow into a better player. I believe that the only two people that have been constant throughout my football career are my parents. My dad has a lot of knowledge for the game, and he has always been there to talk to me and help me learn to be a great football player. My mom may not have all of the football knowledge that my dad has, but she never fails to support me no matter what it is that I choose to do.

PFN: What is it you’d like all your high school team mates and fans to know about your decision that you might have a hard time saying in person?

Dylan: I’m not sure that there’s much that I would have a hard time saying in person to any of my teammates in high school. We all have a special bond, and all of the guys that I play with are my brothers. One thing that I will say to any of them that read this is that just because I committed to play football at BGSU does not mean that my senior year doesn’t matter to me. I expect myself, along with all of my teammates, to go out this year and dominate in our league. We have a lot of talented players and athletes that have the potential to do great things, so I expect nothing less than great things this season out of our team.

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