SCOTTSDALE, Arizona – K’Von Wallace’s fixation on Ohio State began with a simple nickname.
As a child, the Clemson safety’s grandmother thought his eyes made him look like a deer, so she began calling him “Buck.” In the same way his favorite colors of green and yellow turned him into a Green Bay Packers fan, his favorite college football team quickly became Ohio State. And he liked the Buckeyes so much that by the time he was ready to make a college decision, they were at the top of his list.
Quite literally, Wallace’s buck-like eyes nearly made him a Buckeye.
“It's always a story to why I like a team, but that's why I ended up started liking Ohio State,” Wallace told Eleven Warriors on Thursday. “And I'm like, ‘I like them so much, I want to play there.’ I had the dreams and aspirations to play there and play for Urban Meyer and just a great program. But God had different plans. I ended up in Clemson.”
That path has worked out just fine.
In his four years as a Tiger, Wallace has thrived, starting 34 games at safety in the past three seasons and earning third-team All-ACC as a senior this year. He has 62 tackles, eight pass break-ups, two interceptions and a sack through 13 games while a stalwart on a defense that has allowed fewer points per game than any other team in the nation.
But not too long ago, Wallace thought that if he’d ever play in an Ohio State-Clemson Fiesta Bowl, he’d be wearing scarlet and gray.
“Ohio State was my dream school, so I definitely was going to go there, but I wanted to visit the school first.”– Clemson's K'Von Wallace on his interest in Ohio State
For most of his life, due to the nickname of Buck, Ohio State was still what he calls his “dream school.” The Buckeyes didn’t come into the recruiting picture early, though. To be fair, neither did almost every other school, including Clemson. In the summer before his senior year, the Highland Springs, Virginia, native made a commitment to Cincinnati.
“I just wanted to secure my spot because I didn't think I was going to get any more scholarship offers,” Wallace said.
He was wrong. Very wrong.
In January 2016, before the creation of the early signing period, he was barely a week from signing his National Letter of Intent to play for the Bearcats. But out of seemingly nowhere, Clemson followed Virginia Tech’s lead and extended a scholarship offer. It had just lost Jayron Kearse, Mackensie Alexander and T.J. Green to the NFL and was in need of a defensive back. The recruitment of Wallace, then just a two-star prospect and the No. 182 safety in his class, suddenly took off.
One day after earning the offer from the Tigers, he picked up an offer from Ohio State, which he called his dream school in a tweet announcing it. Michigan State and a bevy of other schools offered in the coming days, too, forcing Wallace to take quickly consider his options before National Signing Day, which was a week away.
“I've been a football player my whole life watching five-star recruits and watching YouTube videos,” Wallace said. “I always was into all that stuff. And I've never seen a story where a guy gets 15 offers like a week before signing day when all his decisions are basically changed. And me being a two-star recruit is even crazier. I think they actually bumped me up a star once I got them. I'd rather them keep me at where I was at.”
Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports.
Stars didn’t matter to the teams chasing him. They had seen Wallace play what he described as a “fantastic” senior season and viewed him as an under-the-radar target.
The Buckeyes, even though they came in late, found themselves in an enviable spot with him when they extended the offer.
“Ohio State was my dream school, so I definitely was going to go there, but I wanted to visit the school first,” Wallace said.
So, he set up five visits, in order: Cincinnati, the school to which he was committed; Virginia Tech, an in-state school that he had felt disrespected by since it offered him late in the process; Clemson, an upward-trending program; Ohio State, his dream school; and Pittsburgh, a team that had recently offered. A flurry of snow forced a change of plans and an even further truncated schedule.
Having already seen Cincinnati, he instead planned a Wednesday official visit to Clemson immediately followed by an official visit to Ohio State. That gave him the rare ability to directly compare the schools in succession. What he felt in Columbus didn’t particularly line up with what he had imagined.
“I went on a visit. I didn't like the visit,” Wallace said. “I liked the Clemson visit a lot more. That's how I decided to make that decision. It just felt right with me. The program, the coaches, it seemed pretty hard to get in trouble at Clemson because everybody knows each other, it's a small town, and I feel like at Ohio State, it's a lot of distractions. I'm far away from home. And I feel like Clemson was the best place to develop me as a man. But you know, every school is different for other people. I picked the right school for myself.”
Midway through his official visit to Ohio State, Wallace had already realized it wouldn’t be the place for him and nearly contacted Pittsburgh’s coach to inquire about the possibility of a last-minute visit. His high school coach talked him out of that, and he finished out the remainder of his visit. By then, Clemson was the clear favorite.
Wallace, raised by a single mother while his father was in prison for most of his life, had spent his entire childhood escaping the trappings – drugs, gangs, violence – of cities, and he wanted to do everything he could to avoid that and better his life. And if that meant eschewing his dream school, he felt as though he had to make that choice.
“For me and me personally, I know who I am. I know what type of man I want to become,” Wallace said. “I had to be in an atmosphere where it was smaller and it was very hard to get in trouble. I feel like Ohio State was very easy to get in trouble. It's a city, big city, and I grew up in the city and I've seen a lot of things happen and I didn't want to be in the city. I wanted to be in a small, collective town where the fans are important, the players are important and everybody's just important. You can't get lost in the sauce.
“I feel like sometimes if you're not that dominant player, I don't know nothing about Ohio State, what they do in the program. But sometimes you can get lost in the sauce at programs that big with campuses that big, 100,000 people, fans and stuff like that. You get away from the appreciation a little bit more, and I feel like at Clemson we appreciate a lot of things more. The fans, the players, the staff, everybody's just more collective and more together.”
The addition solidified Clemson’s 2016 class, a group that features multiple key contributors on this year’s College Football Playoff team. Ohio State didn’t come away empty handed, either. It landed Jordan Fuller, a multi-year starter, just two days before National Signing Day to put a bow on its defensive back class.
Wallace now finds himself in the uncommon position of facing what was once his dream school that offered him a scholarship in Saturday’s Fiesta Bowl with a national championship berth on the line.
As his grandmother might say, it’ll be the Buckeyes vs. Buck and his eyes.
