Wallace Stands Out Above All National Team Wide Receivers on Day One
Today was the first day of work at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala. Both Rodarius Williams and Tylan Wallace from Oklahoma State are on the National team that works out first each day at Hancock-Whitney Stadium.
That is the new home of the Reese’s Senior Bowl on the campus of the University of South Alabama. That stadium has replaced ancient Ladd Peebles Stadium. Before the first practice, the players were measured and that revealed some interesting results for the pair of Cowboys.
Williams was as advertised at just barely over 6-0 and weighing 193-pounds. His wingspan was measured at close to 76.5-inches, his arms at 31-inches, and his hand at 9.28-inches.
Meanwhile, Wallace came in at 5-11 even and 193-pounds. At Oklahoma State he was listed at 6-0, 190-pounds. Wallace had a wingspan of 73.48-inches and his arm measured at 32.58-inches. His hand was listed at 9.48-inches. The hand measurement is excellent.
As far as the practice, the first day was in shorts, shoulder pads, and helmets and in the limited amount of video that we were able to view we did see that Wallace and Williams did renew their practice rivalry they had going in Stillwater.
They saw each other some on 7-on-7 and also in the 11-v-11 work. Wallace lined up some at both the slot and the outside receiver.
We did see Wallace snare a short crossing route on the defense in 11-v-11 and turn it into a big gain. He cleared the safety playing zone and then made the catch in front of the linebacker and turned it up field getting by the defenders with a burst. That drew plenty of comments from the NFL Network crew there covering the practice.
“Yeah, he’s had a nice practice and has looked good moving around out there,” NFL Network Draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah commented. “He is someone that can really adjust and high point the ball downfield. He has done a lot of work in the intermeidate in practice today. You see some of his quickness after the catch on that play. One thing about Oklahoma State and that is if you are a good receiver then you are going to catch a million balls.”
“Yeah D.J., I think he has caught a lot of balls and run a lotof routes. That gives him a lot of experience and the opportunity to hit the ground running when he enters the National Football League,” said NFL Network analyst Bucky Brooks. “He has a chance to rip it as an intermediate playmaker.”
Meanwhile, the NFL Network crew saw Rodarius Williams make a nice defensive play using the boundary to force former Michigan wide receiver Nico Collins out of bounds and an incompletion during the 11-v-11 work.
The NFL Network is not the only crew there. ESPN will be there the rest of the week and there were plenty of media at the National practice that noticed, in particular, Tylan Wallace.
Again, it is the Miami Dolphins staff that the two Oklahoma State Cowboys are being coached by, so for Williams that means defensive oriented head coach Brian Flores, defensive coordinator Josh Boyer and defensive backs coach Gerald Alexander. Wallace is under the director of new quarterbacks coach Charlie Frye, who was just hired from Central Michigan where he was offesnive coordinator and quarterbacks coach and the Dolphins wide receivers coach Josh Grizzard.
The Senior Bowl practices continue throughout the week with the National team going at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday and Thursday. The teams have a walk through on Friday and then the Reese’s Senior Bowl is at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 30 televised on the NFL Network.