Walker White couldn’t sleep. It was approaching 1:30 on a late-January morning, yet he was wide awake.
The four-star quarterback prospect from Little Rock (Ark.) Christian Academy had just returned to his hotel room while on an unofficial visit to Clemson with his parents to see head coach Dabo Swinney and the Tigers.
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The visit went …. perfectly, White said. He met newly hired offensive coordinator Garrett Riley, fit in seamlessly with Swinney’s culture and hit it off with current players on the roster.
So why was he still thinking about Auburn?
“My mind was very boggled,” White said. “I couldn’t go to sleep. I didn’t know what to think.”
White went to his Clemson visit knowing that he wanted to commit sooner rather than later. The top-150 national prospect in the Class of 2024 had visited Arkansas and Baylor earlier in the week but knew in all likelihood that this would come down to Auburn and Clemson.
As he weighed the two options well past midnight in his upstate South Carolina hotel room, White grabbed something to write with and headed down to the lobby to jot down his thoughts on paper. Writing has always helped him process how he’s feeling. He also knew he’d enjoy reading these particular notes at some point in the future.
A few minutes into journaling, his phone rang unexpectedly. The call was from a former Arkansas baseball player.
“My brother, Zac, at like 1:30 a.m. called me,” White said. “He was like, ‘All right, bro. Where do you want to go? What do you think the Lord is pulling you to?’ I was like, ‘I feel like it’s Auburn.’ He was like, ‘All right. Well, screw what everyone else thinks. That’s where you need to go.’
“And so by the end of that night, after the Clemson visit, is when I knew I wanted to go to Auburn.”
War Eagle!! 🦅 @AuburnFootball @CoachHughFreeze pic.twitter.com/RAwgonnOWQ
— Walker White (@walker_white5) February 3, 2023
White publicly committed to Auburn six days later, on Feb. 3, giving new coach Hugh Freeze an early victory on the recruiting trail.
“Hugh Freeze got the job and then immediately, (this) was his first stop,” Little Rock Christian Academy head coach Eric Cohu said. “Came to Little Rock (and Walker was) the first student-athlete he recruited. They hit it off well and then Walker went down there and had a good visit.
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“They immediately kind of propelled to top five overnight with that visit.”
Clemson fans will recover from losing out on White, especially considering that the program has since landed a commitment from four-star quarterback Blake Herbert in the Class of 2025. But when White suits up for Auburn next fall, seeing him in an opposing SEC uniform could be difficult for many Arkansas fans.
“My great grandfather, my grandfather, both my parents, cousins, all three of my brothers, my uncle — really everyone in my family has gone to Arkansas,” White said. “Played football there. Played baseball. Cheer(ed). Whatever it was, my family is just all Arkansas.”
White, however, didn’t really have the option of playing for the Razorbacks.
“I don’t know really what it was, but I guess, really in the recruiting process, Coach (Kendal) Briles, he didn’t want a quarterback — or he didn’t want me. And so he didn’t recruit me, the fact of the matter is. And I accepted that. I was completely fine with that. I had a conversation with him, I was like, ‘Listen, if you don’t want me. That’s fine. But don’t — just let me know because I need to know if I need to move on or not.’ But anyway, he didn’t recruit me.”
White said that Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman gives his coordinators autonomy during the evaluation process. Coordinators identify prospects they believe will fit well into their scheme, then Pitman comes in later in the pursuit — at least in White’s experience.
When Briles left for TCU in January — to replace Clemson-bound Riley — Pittman hired Dan Enos from Maryland to coordinate the offense and coach quarterbacks. Enos immediately identified White as a prospect he wanted.
It was too late.
“Coach Enos came along from Maryland and Coach Pittman showed him my tape,” White said. “And he was like, ‘Coach, just watch this tape. I’m not gonna tell you whose it is. I just want you to watch it and I want you to let me know if you want this guy.’
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“And so he showed Coach Enos my tape and (Enos) was like, ‘Coach we gotta get this guy.’”
Enos made the nearly three-hour drive from Fayetteville to Little Rock Christian Academy the next day. The two talked scheme, and Arkansas’ staff asked White to come on a visit just two days after Enos was hired and five days after White’s first trip to Auburn. White accepted the invitation, largely to learn more about the offense and get to know Enos better.
“Coach Enos was great. I loved him. I loved his offense,” White said. “But by that time, personally, I had already moved on from Arkansas mentally and emotionally. They made a great effort. They did amazing. I bet Coach Enos is gonna be very successful wherever he goes. … But by that time in that visit, I had already moved on. I knew at that point, I was like, ‘All right — I either want to go to Auburn or Clemson.”’
Would things have turned out differently for the Razorbacks had Briles handled the recruitment differently? White said he couldn’t answer that question — that it was a hypothetical scenario he hadn’t thought about.
Arkansas did end up taking a quarterback in the 2024 class. Alabama native KJ Jackson, ranked No. 421 nationally, committed to Enos and the Razorbacks in April.
White said he is relieved that his recruitment is over and he has turned his attention toward helping Auburn recruit the rest of its 2024 class. Former Auburn quarterback Bo Nix, now at Oregon, was a mentor of sorts for White throughout the recruiting process and was sure to remind him: “You’re only as good as the guys around you.”
The Tigers’ class is currently ranked No. 14 nationally and includes two five-stars and three other top-150 prospects among the 15-blue-chip commitments.
What will the White family do when Arkansas and Auburn square off?
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“The White family is gonna cheer for me,” he said. “They’ve all expressed, ‘We’re gonna support you wherever you go. We want you to go where you want to go.’
“But at the end of the day, I’m always gonna be a Hog. I grew up an Arkansas fan, so I’ll always root for them when we’re not playing them. I’ll always love the Hogs.”
White plans on graduating early so he can enroll at Auburn in January.
“He has a professional work ethic,” Cohu said “The guy could be on an NFL team as far as work ethic, film study, football 24/7. He’s got obviously great athleticism — great arm strength, speed, velocity on the football, quick release — and he’s a guy that is extremely focused and committed to the game. He can eat, breathe and sleep football constantly.”
(Photo courtesy of Walker White)
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