Latest / Whatcom Preps Podcast / Whatcom Preps Podcast Episode 232 - Top 100 #3 Conner Walcker

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Whatcom Preps Podcast Episode 232 - Top 100 #3 Conner Walcker · Whatcom Preps Podcast

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  This is Friendal Senior Connor Walker, and you're listening to the Top one hundred
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  pounddown on the walkom Preps podcast with Tyler and Ryland. It's a matter of
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  pride. Greetings and welcome into the watcom Preps podcast. This is episode two
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  hundred and thirty two, the eighth of ten podcasts. As we count down
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  the Top one hundred, I'm Ryland Spencer. Along with me as always is
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  Tyler Anderson of wacom Preps. Tyler, how we doing doing great? Doing
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  great? We're down to the nitty gritty and boy number three now, it's
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  it's crazy. This is just moving right along and hopefully everyone's been enjoying it
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  so far. Yeah. I mean this means, Tyler, we've only got
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  what three to two one and the awards only four more podcasts about football.
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  Yeah. Granted by the time we're recording this, there hasn't been a football
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  game played in almost a month. Yeah, that being said, Tyler.
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  The Top one hundred coundown is sponsored by Anytime Fitness visit any of their three
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  locations Ferndale, Linden and Linden North. Anytime Fitness tremendous sponsors of the program
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  be sure to head into one of those three locations, tell them why come
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  prep set. You won't get you anything special, but you know, maybe
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  it'll give us a little little street credit or something, you know what I
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  mean. Uh that being said, Tyler, we are talking about number three
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  today. We've already counted down from one hundred two four sow four down to
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  four. Uh yeah, uh not one hundred two dash four. So yeah,
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  there's already been seven other podcasts, so be sure to go back and
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  listen to those. Subscribe to the podcast. You'll get notifications. They are
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  not directly in order, because we got those Winter Sports Weekly wrap ups that
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  we've done also, so go back and listen to those two What the heck?
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  I mean, some of it's outdated by this point, but go back
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  and listen to them. You know why, go all the way back,
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  listen to the team previews. You know, spend about what twenty nine hours
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  and just go back and listen to everything. Just don't go back and listen
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  to the first few episodes. That's actually I don't even know if you could
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  easily find those because they were technically on a different well you can on walkompreps
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  dot com. Oh yeah, don't do that. Yeah, do not go
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  back if you go back so far that the the cover photo is no longer
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  red, white and blue and there's like a mountain. Just stop, you've
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  gone too far. Well yeah, but I have a page that just is
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  called walk Them Preps podcasts. Oh yeah, that's right. Click on it.
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  You can see it's every single one, episode one, all the way
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  to episode whatever. We're two hundred and thirty two now or something. Tyler,
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  why did you tell the people where they can find Well, it gets
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  clicks baby, well, and worst of all, it starts off with number
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  one Tyler, Right, I should flip it around. The newest one is
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  always near the top and always how long that would take you to do?
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  It? Says click here for the most recent one. But it also I
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  mean, it also says like what we're talking about on each one. So
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  if you're you know, if you wanted to go back and and even watch
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  like, you know, us talking to Blake van Dalen during the COVID year,
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  that you know you could find that or whatever you number fifty Jake Locker,
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  Yeah, yeah, exactly, so you could always go back, I
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  mean stuff. So, Tyler, there's some good stuff here yeah, there's
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  a I mean, we've got all of the coaches, well some guys aren't
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  even head coaches anymore, but uh, starting off with coach Lepp that was
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  at episode forty. Yeah, and then we even got into Toronto Argonaut's legend,
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  t j Ackerman at forty nine. We've got Jake Locker at fifty,
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  drash Craft at fifty one, Mike Perez that was a fun one fifty two,
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  Caleb Luman with the cannon for an arm YEP fifty three. I mean,
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  there's all kinds of good stuff here, man, I mean, yeah,
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  twenty twenty one Blaine football preview. Who doesn't want to know about that?
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  That's episode to be four go back and all the all decade teams that
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  we did those are on there. Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
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  That was fun. Yeah. Yeah, so a bunch of names I'd never
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  heard of, and we joked about how in ten years we'll do it again.
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  And now it's not really a joke, it's i'll be gonna happen.
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  Yeah, now it is. You know, seven years twenty seven to thirty
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  seven was Bellingham and actually it says Bellingham Red Raiders. That's how long ago
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  was Blaine Border rides for Neil Golden Eagles, and then you get all the
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  way down here, number three seven All Walkam County twenty ten's all decade football
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  team for the entire county. Yeah, yeah, for the entire county.
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  That was fun. Anyway, Tyler, we are talking about number three today,
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  Yes, and number three on the top one hundred county down is a
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  six foot three, two hundred and ten pound running back in safety. He's
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  a senior from the Ferndale Golden Eagles. Is number twenty five. Connor Walker
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  just a overall I don't want to say perfect, but just exactly what you
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  want in a high school football player. He had There's no there's no negatives
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  at all, and there's nothing even close to a negative. He's a kid,
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  first of all. Just start with the kid. He's a great kid.
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  He's a great student. He has great size, he's got great speed,
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  he has great instincts, he has great hands, he's got he's strong.
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  He's crazy strong. I mean all these things combined, and you can
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  sit there and it's you could just sit back and go what kind of offense
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  do I want to run? What kind of defense do I want to run?
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  And you could put him in so many different spots and use him in
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  kind of newer ways that you that you've never used a kid before. And
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  that's what's so great about him offensively. You know, he is probably ideally
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  would be a wide receiver, but a wide receiver in the Fernale offense,
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  yeah, that's gonna be tricky. Now. He caught quite a bit of
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  passes his sophomore year but hasn't since then and was used mostly as a wing
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  back and you could still run a pass from there, and they found they
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  have. Ferndale has always found ways to have a wing back that was really
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  fast that could get open down the middle of the field because he kind of
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  gets lost in the shuffle a little bit, and if you put your best
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  athlete there, holy cow, look out. I mean for years there'd be
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  Brosel's running like crazy down the middle of the field and I'll see it.
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  Yeah. Then you see at the end of the year they had like eight
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  catches for four hundred yards and five touchdowns. It's like geez Louise. So
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  that was a huge thing. But then they found creative ways to get him
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  the ball that Ferndale. Verndale kind of does what they do, and they
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  don't steam away from it too much, and they really found some creative ways
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  to get Connor Walker the ball and it paid off. I mean there were
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  multiple times, I think twice where he was an Offensive Player of the Week
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  and it would be something like he'd have seven carries and maybe three catches,
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  but he had would have over one hundred yards rushing and over one hundred yards
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  receiving and multiple touchdowns. Because for Dell's very good at kind of evening the
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  you know, sharing the sugar, as they say, just kind of you
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  get some, you get some, you get some. You're all going to
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  touch the ball ten to twelve times, and there'll be four guys that'll be
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  like that. And but his his were different, I mean, just crazy
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  athletics. Seventy one carries for four hundred and ninety two yards and ten touchdowns
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  and then sixteen catches but for four hundred and sixteen yards in four touchdowns,
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  All conference first team running back and defensive back, and then defensively listed as
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  a safety but very much a strong safety, played up in the box quite
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  a bit and was almost like a rover kind of depending on what the offense
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  presented, where he would play. You know, he could blitz a lot,
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  especially in the run. Blitz was really dynamic. Seventy six and a
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  half tackles, four and a half tackles for loss, seven passes broken up,
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  a fumble, recovery, and an interception, and he a violent tackler.
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  And that was the biggest change I think from previous years to this year
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  was you know, he'd be back in the secondary and he would make these
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  acrobatic plays and he would close in on a ball and knock it away at
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  the last second and get interceptions and stuff like that. But the way that
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  he could attack the run this year was so great, and it speaks volumes
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  to the reason why he's gonna, you know, be a linebacker at the
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  next level and he'd be able to stop the run. But to have the
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  speed at the college level to cover a lot of ground and be in the
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  middle of the field and and whole. I mean that that that total package
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  of being able to do so many different things. That's that's the trick at
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  the next level is well, is he fast enough or is he strong enough,
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  or is he is you know, is the quickness there and all those
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  different things, and he checks off a lot of boxes for people at the
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  next level to to go Holy cow. And he has been so dynamic.
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  He got dinged up a little bit as a junior. Uh did a little
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  bit this year too. He missed that game against Marysville Getchel and it was
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  costly. I mean they they lost that game by one point. And it
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  shows his value as a player. And and uh man, just one of
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  those guys when you see him in person. There was a there was a
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  play in the Linden game where there was a pass deep down the middle of
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  the field and and I was like, whoa that one's going to connect?
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  You know, there was it was kind of a plotting game. There wasn't
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  a whole lot of big, big plays going on yet, and he came
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  out of nowhere to dive and tip that ball away. I mean I mean
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  nowhere, and I I just I turn around and looked at you know,
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  the other media people. I was like, did you see that? Like
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  that is not normal? That is that was crazy? And then I couldn't
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  wait to see it on the film either, because I wanted to see how
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  far away he came from. And and uh yeah, just so much fun
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  watching him play football, and and and getting to know him over the years
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  and again one of those kids that is super polite, like beyond what he
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  needs to be, and that's so refreshing for you know. I mean,
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  you know, you think back when when we were in high school, a
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  lot of these top athletes were you know, pretty arrogant and weren't fun to
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  be around, and he is the complete opposite. He is so just nice
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  and polite and everything, and it's just it makes it so much better.
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  Yeah, And you know, this is a kid that when you watch his
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  film Tyler, there is i mean there's plays where he will absolutely blow up
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  a blocker and then go make the tackle. Still. Yeah, you know,
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  it's like one of those ones where you kind of go like, oh,
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  man, like would have rather had him maybe shoot under the block,
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  you know whatever, and then you're like, oh, made the play anyway,
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  Like huh. Like there's there's a couple of plays against Glacier Peak,
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  by the way, a for a school Yeah that made the round of thirty
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  two. But there's a couple of plays against Glacier Peak where he comes in
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  and just i mean absolutely mangles a blocker and then you know, chases down
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  the running back and you know, it's truly impressive because you know, you
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  didn't see that before, as you kind of mentioned, because he was playing
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  that more of a deeper safety type thing. Yeah, and the and the
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  question kind of becomes like, guys, he's still going to be an aggressive
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  player when he gets closer to the line and you know there's maybe a little
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  bit more in his face. Well, he was. I mean, he
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  absolutely was listed as a three star athlete by twenty four to seven Sports.
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  When you look at what Eastern Washington has on him, Coaches Report says Connor
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  is an exciting athlete coming here to play linebacker, terrific length and athleticism.
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  Has played wide receiver, running back, and everywhere on defense. They can
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  run, but he'll chase them down, is what it says. That's great.
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  Yeah, that's a perfect way putting it. Absolutely, Yeah, it's
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  a great way of putting it. Listed as the thirty sixth best recruited athlete
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  in the state of Washington. I mean, this is a guy that is
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  just it's been a steady climb, you know what I mean, It's been
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  better every year, and from day one it was already good, you know,
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  and it's just been better and better. And better, and you know,
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  kind of talked about it with John Stremler is another kid that it wouldn't
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  surprise me if he gets to Eastern and you know, ends up playing it
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  about two twenty to twenty five, and really, I mean, he's already
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  in great shape, but a guy that's just absolutely shredded, you know,
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  and wouldn't surprise me at all if he's only there for a couple of years
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  before moving on somewhere bigger. It just it just wouldn't. It's just the
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  it's just the nature of the game nowadays, you know what I mean.
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  And these guys do that, and I've seen it with a lot of guys
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  from Eastern. One that comes to mind right off the top of my head
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  is Trey Weed. He was a defensive back out of Sumner. He went
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  to Eastern, was a tremendous player, moved on to Nevada. Josh Jerome
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  was a defensive lineman from Monroe. He did the same thing, moved on
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  to I believe, Hawaii. So you know, it wouldn't surprise me.
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  It wouldn't surprise me if at some point we're watching him at the FBS level.
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  Yeah, I mean, his his film is just it's fun to watch
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  man. It is really really fun to watch because he absolutely gets after it.
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  I mean, yeah, yeah, he really stands out. It almost
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  looks like he's His film is the one kind of where you know how like
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  it always pauses before the play and it kind of puts a circle on the
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  guy or a row on the guy or whatever. It's like, you don't
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  need that with his film. He like it. He stands out already and
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  it just it just goes. It's crazy how it just jumps right off the
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  screen because uh, he makes the routine plays all the time. Yes,
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  but then he'll make these highlight plays where you just go, whoa, he's
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  at it. He's playing at a different speed or he's playing at a different
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  level and on both sides of the ball. There's that there's that catch.
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  I'm sure it's on his highlight reel where he catches it and then he's breaking
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  tackles dragon tacklers. It breaks loose and then runs for It's like what was
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  that? Like is he is he just is he secretly like twenty six years
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  old and we don't know it, or like what's the deal? Like he's
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  he's he's just that much better than the guy is on the field with him
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  a lot of the time, and and it stands out. I love that
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  play on defense too, where he comes through and he just picks the guy
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  up and throws him on the ground, and it really shows like the raw
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  strength that he has. And it's you know, like like you said,
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  if they put ten to fifteen more pounds on him of muscles, he's going
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  to be an animal. It's gonna be scary for the opposition. Yeah.
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  Well, there's one play also, and I don't remember which team specifically,
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  it might be Edmunds Woodway, but there's one play where he takes a couple
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  of downsteps to you know, see the run nope, ye, And then
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  he gets out of there and he starts flipping his hips and next thing,
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  you know, the quarterback tries to throw a deep ball down the middle and
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  he gets all the way back there and makes the play. Yeah, and
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  he and he intercepts it, and you're just like, wow, that is
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  a linebacker that's like thirty five yards downfield. Yeah. I mean, that's
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  just that's tough to do, man. I mean, you remember what made
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  the uh, the the Tampa two defense in Chicago so good for all those
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  years. Was Brian Yeah, yeah, well yeah, Derek Brooks did it
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  in Tampa two. Very similar, but yeah, you remember Brian Urlocker used
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  to get so much depth as that middle linebacker, and it almost, I
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  mean, it almost turned it into a Cover three, you know what I
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  mean. I was just gonna say, that's that's how you can kind of
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  attack. The Tampa two is like twenty five yards down the field in the
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  middle. Yeah, really, that's that's the open spot. But when you
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  have a linebacker that can cover that much ground, yep, it it doesn't
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  You're absolutely right, it turns into a Cover three, right, Yeah,
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  And that's it's. Yeah, it's truly amazing watching his film because there's also
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  some stuff against Stanwood where he's playing outside backer, yeah, you know,
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  and then there's there's some stuff where he's playing like a it's weird because he's
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  playing inside backer, but he's like eight yards off the ball and then he
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  makes the tackle right at the line of scrimmage. Yeah, you're like,
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  my goodness, man. I mean, it's like got a little Troy Paulamalu
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  in him, you know what I mean, where it's like he reads the
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  plays so well and and he as soon as he reads it, he just
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  takes off. I mean like a gazelle, you know, I mean,
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  bam. And and it's like he is right there, and if somebody's gonna
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  get in his way and they don't have the ball, they're going to be
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  out of his way. They're you know, people are I'm surprised more guys
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  don't start making business decisions in high school, you know what I mean,
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  And just going, ah, I'm just gonna try to maybe get a piece
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  of him, you know, instead of trying to take him on, you
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  know, full head of team, but anything else Tyler before we head out.
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  Yeah, I just you know, he's a kid that I just I
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  just always want to say thank you to a kid like that, because every
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  time I've ran into him, it's just super nice. Makes me feel important
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  and and it's you know, everybody needs to feel that way every once in
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  a while, and he's always done that, and and I just wish him
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  the best going forward, and and I know he's going to do some some
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  great things, and so I just want to thank him for for always doing
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  that for me, and for for playing his heart out on the field and
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  having it be such a joy for everybody to watch. You know. One
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  of the great things about Eastern Washington Tyler is they make it really easy to
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  root for them because they recruit Walkham County. That is very, very true.
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  It's a it's ah, it is pretty cool. It's starting to really
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  go that way. And and uh and I don't you know, I I
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  tend to not pay attention too much to college football only because Saturdays are crazy
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  for me watching high school film and I and I'm so busy doing that.
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  But I it's it's it's really hard for me to keep tabs. But I'm
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  gonna do my best. With all these Walking County players going on playing the
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  next level, including Connor Walker, it's gonna be a lot of fun.
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  Yeah, that's something I think for next year we need to maybe do a
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  little bit better job of as a like where are they now? Yeah,
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  an alumni recap, you know what I mean type of thing. Walkom County
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  love my recap every week. Maybe we don't put it on the podcast.
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  Maybe we do. Hey, somebody wants to sponsor it, We'll put it
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  on there exactly, you know. But at the same time, that's that's
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  a I hate to say it but it's a cheap and easy post, you
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  know what I mean. It's something that I think people would would love that
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  you could easily just have a good spreadsheet and go through it every week and
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  find out which kids played and you know, who started, who had stats
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  they did, yeah, how their team did, stuff like that. So
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  yeah, alrighty, well let's wrap it up right there. Thank you again
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  to Anytime Fitness for their sponsorship of the Top one hundred Countdown Ferndale, Linden
• 19:36
  Linden North. Be sure to visit one of those three locations. He's Tyler
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  Anderson of Walkham Preps. I'm Rylan Spencer. You've been listening to episode two
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  hundred and thirty two, number three Connor Walker in the Top one hundred Countdown
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  here on the Walkum Preps podcast. We will talk to you tomorrow.