Notre Dame Commit Profile: Amorion Walker, Wide Receiver
Notre Dame landed a commitment from Louisiana wide receiver Amorion Walker, a raw wideout with potential.
AMORION WALKER PROFILE
Hometown: Ponchatoula, La.
High School: Ponchatoula
Height: 6-3
Weight: 170
IB Grade: 3.0 (Top 500 caliber player)
Upside Grade: 4.0
Offers: Notre Dame, Alabama, LSU, Michigan, Florida State, Ole Miss, Arkansas, West Virginia, Virginia Tech, Mississippi State, Indiana, Kansas State, Georgia Tech, Washington State, Kansas
Recruited By: Del Alexander
RECRUITING RANKINGS
ESPN: 4-star - No. 241 overall - No. 34 wide receiver
247Sports: 3-star - No. 53 athlete
Rivals: 3-star
Composite: 3-star - No. 532 overall - No. 40 athlete
FILM ANALYSIS
The first thing that stands out about Walker on film is his exceptional length. He's all arm and legs at this point. Walker is still quite thin at this point, and he has relatively narrow shoulders, so there are questions about how much weight he'll actually put on. Despite his lack of girth and current lack of strength, Walker is willing to mix it up on both sides of the ball, and you have to appreciate that desire to battle.
Walker has outstanding ball skills. To begin, his long arms and overall length gives him an extremely wide catch radius. That is combined with relatively loose hips and good body control, which only adds to his ability to expand the zone for quarterbacks to get him the ball. Walker snatches the ball out of the air with ease, and he tracks the deep ball a well as any wideout I've evaluated in this class.
His length, ball skills and hands are extremely important because they allow him to be open and a legitimate target even when he doesn't get any separation. We saw this with Miles Boykin at times during his Notre Dame career, and while Walker doesn't have Boykin's size and frame, or long speed at this point, the length and ball skills are similar. I would contend that Walker's hands are faster and even stronger than Boykin's were at the same age.
Where Walker's overall grade gets dragged down right now is from an athleticism standpoint. Right now he doesn't show ideal speed or foot quickness, on either side of the ball. Walker is a bit heavy footed and he doesn't show a great burst at this point. It was better as a sophomore before his injuries, but even then it wasn't the kind of burst or second gear you see from top wideouts. He is a long strider, which helps him cover a lot of ground early, but it keeps him from pulling away from faster athletes.
Right now Walker is a low-floor/high-ceiling, and there's a lot of projection with him. Notre Dame is taking a gamble by getting him this early. They are banking on him making a big leap over the next year or two, and it would seem they wanted to get him into the class before programs like LSU, Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State and Georgia get on him.
The gamble is that being a low floor player that needs to make a big jump in speed and explosiveness, he could end up not panning out. If the gamble pays off, and Walker takes a big jump in speed over the next two years, the Irish will have gotten a steal.
GRADE KEY
5.0 - Elite player
4.5 - All-American caliber player
4.0 - Multi-year starter
3.5 - Key role player / Late career-starter
3.0 - Backup
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