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Todd Graham may never have an easier recruitment than this one. Bo Wallace, a 3 star edge rusher out of John Curtis in Louisiana that originally signed with Notre Dame back in February, is now going to be a Sun Devil after a hectic couple of days.
It got a bit lost in the shuffle with the Everett Golson transfer news, but Wallace announced he would no longer be attending Notre Dame earlier this week because of what was later revealed as a test score issue. With most freshman football players reporting to school next month, that meant there wasn't going to be a lot of time for Wallace or schools that were interested in him to wait. This all led to a visit shortly after to Arizona State with an announcement from Todd Graham that Wallace was coming to ASU not too long after that. No one has ever had to do less work to land a potentially great pass rusher and I'm sure Graham is grateful for the gift that just fell into his program's lap.
So what kind of player are the Sun Devils actually getting in Wallace? He's a composite 3 star player, but with a 4 star ranking from at least couple of the major recruiting services. That mix of rankings accurately reflects his talent. He is not a finished product by any means, but has a very high ceiling. At 6'4", he has very good length for an edge rusher and flashes a great first step. He has some explosiveness to his game that makes you excited about his potential.
It may take some time for him to realize that potential though. In addition to all of the developing he has to do physically (he is listed in the 215 range), he is very raw with his hand usage and lacks any real pass rush moves at this time. He also isn't consistently explosive off the ball and will expose his chest too often to an offensive lineman. I have seen some reporters suggest he will be in the mix to contribute early because of opportunity at the Devil Backer position for ASU, but I don't think he is close to being ready to being the valuable contributor he can one day become. He has a lot of developing to do before then. After signing day I actually labeled him as a player that is very likely to redshirt for Notre Dame on One Foot Down. In that post, I left the door open for him to physically go through a big transformation, but I would be surprised if that's the case.
Regardless of whether he gets on the field this season or not, ASU fans should be excited about landing a pass rusher with a bright future that basically came out of nowhere for them. They already have a great interior pass rusher on the way in Joseph Wicker and they just lucked into adding a player who should eventually produce a lot of pressure off the edge.