ARLINGTON – The liveliest imagination recently put forward for consideration the proposition that with all the attention Oklahoma State All-America wide receiver Tylan Wallace would receive from defenses this year, even oil and gas baron Boone Pickens could find enough open space on the other side to receive passes from either of the two candidates vying for starting quarterback.
That might be what you call dreaming in color. Oklahoma State’s best friend, at 91, will continue to be a most valuable player filling in blanks from a fat and phat checkbook. Subject line: Cowboys football.
Truth be told from this truth seeker, wide receivers on the other side of the field indeed should benefit from all the attention given Wallace, the Fort Worth South Hills High School product who has graduated to Biletnikoff Award frontrunner, this year running Ivy League routes under new offensive coordinator Sean Gleeson, a Princeton man.
A lot of guys will be in the mix when fall camp begins.
“I told them, ‘all you got to do is go out there and play ball,’” Wallace said. “Go out there and get yours because it’s going to be an opportunity for you definitely.”
Who will be throwing the passes will be decided in fall camp. Redshirt freshman Spencer Sanders of Denton Ryan, believed to be the leading candidate, and Dru Brown, a graduate transfer from Hawaii, are competing for the starting job.
The one guy who will not be in the mix on the other side at receiver is Wallace’s twin brother, Tracin.
Tracin announced last month that he was retiring from football, a series of knee injuries, the first dating to his junior year at South Hills, driving him from the game the brothers loved together.
Tracin tore his ACL a third time last year, necessitating a fourth knee surgery.
“I will forever be grateful for all the accomplishments and places the game has taken me,” Tracin told his Twitter network the first week of June.
He decided he had more pressing concerns than yards after catch. Tracin is still in school at Oklahoma State pursuing his degree with a plan for graduate study. He’ll also still be around the team in another capacity.
“It was very difficult for him,” said Tylan this week at the Big 12 Media Days at AT&T Stadium, home to the NFL’s Cowboys. “He really thought about it. We talked about it awhile. He thought it was the best decision for him was to just sit out and get a degree and not make things worse with the injury.”
Thus ended the story of one of Fort Worth’s best football duos, bound by both a deep abiding love for one another, as well as extraordinary competitive streaks.
Close and highly competitive – even with each other – the two chose Oklahoma State because the school was one of the few that wanted them both.
“The most competitive two dudes you could ever imagine,” said JJ Resendez, their high school coach at South Hills. “They were always getting after each other to get better.”
Resendez recalled when the brothers were sophomores at South Hills. They came into the football locker room arguing about the supremacy of each other’s ability.
Suddenly, they plopped down on a wrestling mat in the locker room and grappled for about five minutes.
“Then they got up and went back to class,” Resendez said. “That’s the mentality those guys have. They just they love to compete. We would be killing them in off-season and kids would be crying and screaming. You could see [the brothers] were hurting, but they would have a smile on their face.
“They loved football. They loved the process. Everything football, they just love it. Even when it’s painful, they know it’s a means to an end, and they love it.”
The Wallace brothers remade South Hills football in their own image.
Tracin was the Scorpions quarterback. Tylan, an Under Armour All-America as a senior, was his top target. Tracin was essentially lost to high school football after his sophomore season. He tore a ligament in his knee as a junior.
It was late in a scrimmage against Dallas Seagoville in August 2013, his junior season, when he first hurt it. He was scrambling, and when he tried to cut his knee on his plant leg gave in.
The next year, he was lost again two games into his senior season with the same injury.
Still, Tracin was recruited to Oklahoma State as a quarterback and eventually moved to the receivers room. He was a redshirt his first year. Last year, he caught one pass before reinjuring his knee.
A.J. Green, the Cowboys standout cornerback from DeSoto, has witnessed it plenty: Tylan “and his twin chop it up all the time.”
“We’ve been going at it our whole life,” Tylan said. “Competed in everything, argued about everything. We still do, to this day. I guess growing up, you have that different type of intensity and different type of competitiveness than you would with anyone else. Being your brother, the competitiveness goes up.”
Tylan Wallace, a junior who has played at Oklahoma State since he arrived as a freshman in 2017, has enough juice to find motivation on his own.
He is among the best receivers in the nation, a Biletnikoff finalist in 2018 after a breakout season. Jerry Jeudy of Alabama was the eventual winner.
At 6-foot, 185 pounds, physically he fits in the mold of Antonio Brown as far as NFL prospects. Wallace gained attention last year by his ability to go up and get balls over two and three defenders.
“He has all the ingredients,” Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy said. “He’s humble, he’s tough, loves to play football. He’s intelligent, and he’s a leaper. His route running skills will only get better. That’s something you do over a period of time and increases your value, more so than being able to leap and taking a ball out of the air.
“He’ll certainly have a chance to play for quite a while.”
Said Green, the cornerback: “He can be great. He comes to work, he doesn’t take a day off in the weight room. He does everything with [strength and conditioning coach] Rob Glass, on the field and in practice. He’s a workhorse. He doesn’t say much, just works.”
That doesn’t mean life didn’t change a little when Tylan’s best friend and adversary had to call it quits.
But life goes on … for both.