Recruiting on the South Plains: 2016 ATH/WR Tristen Wallace Player Profile

Tristen Wallace appears to be a grown man at this point of his high school career.  Wallace is the quarterback for the DeSoto Eagles, missed almost the entire 2014 football season with a broken ankle and then comes back and rushes for 183 yards in a playoff game.  Wallace is the second commit of the 2016 class and joins Houston S Collin Wilder.

RECEIVERS
TRISTEN WALLACE	WIDE RECEIVER
HT/WT: 6-3/225 FORTY: 4.40 HIGH SCHOOL: DeSoto (DeSoto, TX) VIDEO: Hudl RECRUITING SERVICES: Rivals 5.7 | Scout | ESPN | 24/7 Sports 90 CUMULATIVE RANKING: 0.9143 VTM PROFILE DATE: January 5, 2015 OFFERS: Indiana, Nebraska, Ohio State, SMU, Texas Tech, UCLA

THE PLAYER SPEAKS: From Red Raider Sports, Wallace talked about how he will play receiver at Texas Tech, despite the fact that Wallace plays quarterback for DeSoto:

"Coach Kingsbury and I have been talking a lot and we have a good connection," Wallace said. "He told me that I'm talented enough to go play anything, any position."

Being that he could play quite a few different positions, the Red Raiders are taking Wallace as an athlete, despite the fact that he's playing quarterback at DeSoto right now. He feels he'll ultimately end up as a pass catcher at Tech, and that's just fine in the big ATH's eyes.

"Ultimately, I'm going to play wide receiver for Texas Tech. I play quarterback now, but coming into DeSoto I played wide receiver and ended up playing quarterback. I have always been an athlete and coach Kingsbury believes that I can help in a number of ways in their offense."

The article also mentions that Wallace has two cousins that played for Texas Tech, Trent and Brent Nickerson.

SCOUTING REPORT: Wallace is maybe a C+ passer, but an A+ athlete. He is big and fast, maybe the best combination of size and speed that Texas Tech has in the 2015 class as well, although maybe Jonathan Giles would give Wallace a run for his money.  Consider that Wallace is the size of 2015 commit Lonzell Gilmore, who plays defensive end (and plays it really well).  Still, Wallace is physically mature for his size and the way that he is able to simply out-run opponents is nothing short of impressive. I was watching film of Temple's Chad President and I thought he was a fantastic athlete playing quarterback, but Wallace is simply better, not even a question, because of his size.

Wallace only threw for 641 yards and rushed for 535 yards, but he missed almost the entire season due to a broken ankle. Wallace returned from injury and rushed for 183 yards and three touchdowns against Coppell and then played Allen and ran 31 times for 109 yards.

Tristen, welcome to Texas Tech and Git Your Guns Up!

2016 Texas Tech Football Commits

RECEIVERS
TRISTEN WALLACE	WIDE RECEIVER
HT/WT: 6-3/225 FORTY: 4.40 HIGH SCHOOL: DeSoto (DeSoto, TX) VIDEO: #Hudl RECRUITING SERVICES: Rivals 5.7 | Scout | ESPN | 24/7 Sports 90 CUMULATIVE RANKING: 0.9143 VTM PROFILE DATE: January 5, 2015 OFFERS: Indiana, Nebraska, Ohio State, SMU, Texas Tech, UCLA
DEFENSIVE BACKS
COLLIN WILDER	FREE SAFETY
HT/WT: 5-11/180 FORTY: 4.54 HIGH SCHOOL: Katy (Katy, TX) VIDEO: Hudl RECRUITING SERVICES: Rivals N/R | Scout | ESPN N/R | 24/7 Sports N/R CUMULATIVE RANKING: 0.9092 VTM PROFILE DATE: June 16, 2014 OFFERS | Texas Tech