Although he talked about it over the summer, and there were rumors to confirm it, it’s now confirmed:  one of ND’s top cover corners of the 2007 season will return – Walls is back.

Given the amount of contact he had with the team over the season, it may be like he never left for some.  Walls attended three home games this year, and kept in almost constant contact with his best friend on the team, and replacement, Raeshon McNeil. 

Walls will compete with McNeil, frosh standout Blanton, Sgt Slaughter, and Gary Gray for the starting job next Fall.  Once again, the Irish will feature a talented and deep roster of cover guys, which should allow for increased focus on the running game from the LB corps next year.    Although rumors of Gray’s transfer were abundant after he didn’t make the trip to Hawaii, there has been no confirmation and so for now it looks like he’ll remain on the team.

Walls will come back to ND for the off-season training and Spring ball portions of the program, starting 1/9 with a renewed sense of perspective.

“My dad and I were talking about this yesterday, the lessons learned from this experience,” Walls said. “I don’t regret anything I’ve done in the past. I’ve just learned from my mistakes. And I learned not to make the same mistake over again.

“Once you see everything from a bird’s-eye point of view, you really get the true definition of what it’s like to be a part of something or not be a part of something. No matter what you’re going through, you’ve got to keep your head up and keep going, because life goes on.”

“What kept my spirits up was the support from my teammates, the coaches and my family,” Walls said. “But the main thing that helped me was God. That’s one major change in my life I made during this time. I went to church almost every Sunday. I prayed and prayed. And somewhere along the line, I was able to come to peace with it all.”

I expected Walls to be a big leader this Fall, and it was disappointing to lose him.   Blanton was a great surprise as a true Frosh though, and McNeil filled in admirably.  While I think it will take Darrin a while to get back into the swing and to gel with some of his new teammates (and old), I think he’ll be right back in the mix by the Blue-Gold game, and could still manage to become that leader we expected in 2009.

Welcome back, Darrin.  Glad to see you stick it out. 

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