Five-star Little headed to Stanford

For a minute there, Stanford head coach David Shaw probably couldn’t believe his luck.

After leading the way for much of Walker Little’s recruitment this year, a coaching shake-up at Texas very nearly threw a last-minute wrench in his designs to land the top-25 Rivals100 prospect. Instead, at a Friday morning ceremony at his school, Little stuck to his guns and announced his commitment to play his college football for the Cardinal.

“I was just ready to wrap things up,” Little said. “After these home visits from all these schools, I knew what they had to offer. I knew what the coaches had to offer and their plans for me. I feel like now I am in the best position to make a decision, so I would just go ahead and do it.”

New Texas head coach Tom Herman and his offensive line coach Derek Warehime made his decision as tough as they could, but Little’s history with Shaw and his staff was too much to overcome before he was ready to make his commitment.

“I’ve known that staff for a couple of years now and I feel comfortable with how they can develop me as a player,” he said. “I like with them that they have just been really straight-forward with me the whole time. They’re not the kind of staff that calls you all the time, pumping you up, saying you’re this, you’re that, they have just been upfront with their plan for when I could come in, when they’d expect me to play, and how they can try and get me in the NFL.”

Now that he has made his final decision, Little said he’ll be shutting his recruitment down and only taking his final official visit next month to Palo Alto.

Although Texas made a full-court press with its presentations during visits with he and his family, Little’s familiarity with Herman came more from proximity rather than the type of personal relationship he’s built with Shaw and company.

“I wanted Coach (Charlie) Strong to stay and I really felt comfortable with that coaching staff,” he said. “But I knew obviously being in Houston that if Coach Strong didn’t get it done that Coach Herman was going to be the guy. I knew a good amount about Coach Herman from being here and going to some U of H practices.”

He’s had a good sense of what the immediate future holds for him at Stanford as well. While the expectation is Texas will continue to have a successful offense going forward, Stanford’s offensive résumé has been well established during Shaw’s tenure and isn’t set to change anytime soon.

“They do so many big packages and that’s one of the things I like a lot,” Little said. “They do so many things just to get you in from time-to-time, let you work your way into it, and obviously I am going to be trying my best to work my way onto the field ... I just feel like they have a lot of knowledge and know how to do it.”

Another surprising development down the stretch in Little’s recruitment was Ole Miss conspicuously fading from contention. The Rebels were thought by many to have a shot through the end, as he has two older siblings wrapping up their education in Oxford.

“It was nothing in particular, it’s just this whole process for me has been to find the place that I can be the most successful,” Little said. “I just didn’t want to waste their time anymore, I just didn’t think it was the place for me.”

What proved to be more the place for Little was a destination that could offer a prestigious education with a football program that is run with a down-to-business mentality. No surprise that a punishing blocker favors a no-nonsense approach from his coaching staff.

“I’ve had a really good relationship with them throughout,” he said. “When people ask why, you can give them any number of reasons - the school’s great, the football’s great now, Coach Shaw has an NFL program there and they just feed guys to the league. To have the opportunity to get that education and be able to go to the NFL is something that is unique to them.”

Little admittedly is more accustomed to the lifestyle he’s had in Texas and southern culture, but expects he’ll have no trouble adapting to the scene in the bay-area.

“Obviously it’s going to be different going out to California,” he said. “There’s a lot of adjustments that come with that but it’s a really cool place. The weather is awesome, that’s what I tell everyone - how much better you feel when you’re out there - it’s just different and a cool thing to be in that environment for four years.”