Deone Walker a Midseason Top 25 Player in College Football

Ahead of the 2024 college football season, Deone Walker was billed as one of the best players in the sport. Halfway through the season, the Kentucky defensive lineman is living up to the hype.

Ahead of week eight, ESPN re-ranked the Top 25 players in college football. Walker is representing the Wildcats at No. 21 overall.

The most mundane part of the box score is the most revealing when looking for signs of Walker’s dominance. He’s certainly got his disruptive side — he made 17.5 tackles at or behind the line in 2023, and he has nine career sacks, too. That’s pretty good for a guy whose main job, at 6-foot-6 and 345 pounds, is to occupy blockers and eat space in the middle of the line. But you know what’s just about unheard of for a guy that size? Through the first five games, Walker was also second on the team in tackles. He made a tackle on 12.1% of his snaps. That’s a linebacker’s average! In fact, UK linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson was at only 10.0% in the same period. Walker is a 345-pounder making plays from sideline to sideline. That’s not normal. 

Bill Connelly, ESPN

Another thing that’s remarkable about Walker is that he rarely takes a play off. Last week the enormous interior defensive lineman was on the field for 50 of the Wildcats’ 56 defensive snaps. Most big-bodied defensive linemen play around 50% of the time. He’s only missed 19 plays in four SEC games. Remarkable.

How Deone Walker will Impact Kentucky vs. Florida

It’s hard to block Big No. 0 from Detroit. If he isn’t making a play, Deone Walker drawing multiple blockers, freeing up his teammates to cause chaos behind the line of scrimmage.

Kentucky ranks second nationally in havoc rate, creating a tackle for loss, pass break-up, or turnover on 17.5% of their defensive snaps. The defense is facing an offense that allows its opponents to consistently make big plays. Florida is allowing a havoc play 14.2% of the time, ranking No. 121 out of 134 FBS teams. Billy Napier knows the Gators will have their hands full against the Kentucky defense on Saturday night.

“The front seven in general, I would say is as good as we’ll play,” Napier said on the SEC Teleconference. “Just the height, the length, and a ton of veteran players. Both inside backers are 240, 250 pounds. There’s a ton of big men on the inside, and then obviously some height length on the edges that can create problems.”