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Before guys made the NFL and before they became consistent starters or better in college, someone found them in high school. With that in mind, we have an occasional series called Recruiting Tales, where we chat with the main college recruiter of a Detroit Lions player. Defensive tackle Tyrunn Walker is one of the newest Detroit Lions, coming over from the New Orleans Saints. He was a junior college gem a few years earlier for then-University of Tulsa defensive coordinator Keith Patterson, who now has the same role at Arizona State. Walker was a three-star junior college recruit by Rivals.com when he committed to Tulsa. The Q&A was edited for length and clarity.  Q: Do you remember how you found him? When you saw him?
Keith Patterson: “Mike Norvell had built a lot of relationships with people in Louisiana. We had a GA, he was from New Iberia, same hometown as Tyrunn. I’ll never forget, Ron West comes down to my office and goes, 'Keith, I have a young man I want you watch.' He had seen him in the spring and he thought he was a kid that, for us, was a possible office at the time. But it never got to me so I had never seen the kid. I can’t remember it was December or January but it was late in the recruiting process. … I go there and sit and watch the film and I think this is a joke or something. We’re at the University of Tulsa, kid is 6-foot-5, 215-to-220 pounds which is exactly what we looked for. We looked to project kids because if they were 6-foot-4, 265 pounds or 6-5, 270 pounds, those guys were going to Oklahoma, Texas and LSU. We always tried to project guys who could become that. We had done a pretty good job of it. “So they come down and I say, ‘This kid is still available?’ He was in Jones, Mississippi at the time. I said, ‘I want to go see that kid now.’ They put me on a plane and I go down with Ron West and he was lifting weights that day. There were some Big 12 schools there at the time and a couple had offered him and shown interest in him. It was one of those things that happened bang-bang. Went down, watched him worked out, offered him. I go back, do a couple home visits with his family there and the next thing you know, the kid signs at the University of Tulsa and is a three-year starter for us.” Q: You kind of answered it but what was the thing that made you say ‘Whoa?’ Patterson: “It was his athleticism. It wasn’t that here’s this finished product because if he had been a finished product he would have ended up at Alabama or LSU, but I saw the potential. As soon as they put the film on, I said, ‘Why are we just now getting on this guy? It’s January.’ They said, ‘Well, we didn’t approve him.’ I said, ‘This is the first time I saw him.’ Me and Ron immediately went down there and said we have to get all over this guy. Fortunately, because we built that relationship, I think the key was when we brought the young man in on the visit, we had Damaris Johnson, kids from Lutcher (Louisiana), East St. John (Louisiana), so it was kind of a natural fit.” Q: When you go down to Mississippi, do you think you have a shot at him? Patterson: “You know what, I didn’t really know. The one thing that we did, I just wanted to go and get a feel because what I saw on film is that the kid is an offer. So we would call, offer him and get on a plane. When I saw him physically, when they brought him out of that weight room, I went, ‘Holy cow, what are we doing, this guy is a no-brainer for us.’ But then I thought, man, this is going to be a dogfight. There was pressure on him to stay close to him, places like UL-L. He was intrigued about being close to home and the Big 12 schools involved. I knew it was going to be a dogfight to get him but things happened so fast that I think he had a comfort level.” Q: When you’re projecting, do you think he’s an NFL-caliber kid? Patterson: “In my opinion, I believed that he was. I said, ‘What’s this guy going to look like three years from now?’ Look at (Greg) Romeus from Pitt, (he was) the same kid, 6-4, 215-pound basketball players in high school. Then all of a sudden they get into a strength-and-conditioning program. I knew he had the athleticism and the frame of an NFL player. Now whether or not he was going to have the work ethic, the discipline and those things to develop into an NFL player, that was on his shoulders.”
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