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Ten championship. He wants to be All- Big Ten. So he has goals, and it's my job as a coach to make sure he's on track to do that." There's every reason to believe that the 6-foot-6, 320-pounder from Waldorf, Md., is on that track. But as a sophomore at North Point High, Walker wasn't fo- cused on how far he could go in the game. He was just having fun. He didn't pay much attention to college football, so when his first recruiting letter arrived, he didn't know what to make of it. It was from Purdue, and he'd never heard of the place. Even after he started having success as an offensive lineman, Walker wasn't thinking about playing at the Power Five level. At one point, he found himself hanging out with an assistant named Ken Pryor in the North Point coaches' office. "We were just chillin' and he said, 'You're D-I and you don't even know it,' " Walker recalled. "I was like, 'What?' But I always remem- bered him saying that. And then stuff started taking off." Walker ended up as a consen- sus four-star recruit, choosing Penn State over offers from Ohio State and Virginia Tech. He played in four games as a true freshman in 2018, enough to get his feet wet but not enough to cost him a year of eligibility. The next spring, with a first-team tackle spot open after Ryan Bates left for the NFL, Walker knew he had a chance to be- come a starter, but he also knew he needed to improve his game. He was working out against Yetur Gross-Matos every day in practice, and as Walker re- called, the future second-round NFL Draft pick "was killing me, all spring." It was a discouraging start, but by pre- season camp Walker was winning his share of those battles against Gross- Matos. That's when he began thinking he had a chance to shine at the college level, and maybe the next level, too. He went on to start every game that fall, and he started every game last year during Penn State's COVID-shortened season. Walker has now made 22 con- secutive starts and has developed into a mainstay of an offen- sive line that, heading into the 2021 season, has been garnering praise as possibly the best of the Franklin era at Penn State. Walker said he's excited about the po- tential of this year's offensive line, in part because the unit had a chance to work closely with Trautwein this past spring – an opportunity the team missed out on last year when the off-season drills were canceled due to the pandemic. "Every rep that we missed last spring, I feel like it really played a big part in how we played," Walker said. "This spring, we banked a lot of reps, and I feel like it's going to translate. We're going to come out this season and be more confident, because we've already had a whole spring-ball season. We've got the offense down pat, we're moving fast. I feel like we're going to have a real good season." One of the reasons why Walker returned for one more year was that he thought Trautwein could help shape him into a better pro prospect than he would have been if he had come out this past spring. Trautwein thinks so, too. The second- year Penn State assistant coach, a former NFL lineman himself, likes to emphasize what he calls the "no-talent" elements of football, the areas in which anyone can improve regardless of their size or natural physical ability. Walker has done that, Trautwein said. "He came out every spring practice and tried to work on something and make sure he worked on the no-talent things – his effort, his technique, his fundamentals," Trautwein said. "He wants [people] to watch him and say he's a consistent left tackle who can play a long time in the NFL. That's his goal. That's what he's striving to do every day. It's my job to show him that way. He's coachable, which is great. He takes coaching, and me and him have a great relationship. He's an awesome kid who's growing and getting better every day." ■ >> RETURN ENGAGEMENT One of the reasons Walker came back for one more season with the Lions was to work with Traut- wein again. Photo by Mark Selders/ Penn State Athletics

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