Walter Nolen (born c. 2003) is an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

defensive tackle A defensive tackle (DT) is a position in American football that will typically line up on the line of scrimmage, opposite one of the offensive guards, however he may also line up opposite one of the tackles. Defensive tackles are typically the la ...

for the Texas A&M Aggies. He was rated by

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

and ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...

'' as the No. 1 recruit in the

2022 college football recruiting class The college football recruiting class of 2022 refers to the recruiting of high school athletes to play college football starting in the fall of 2022. The scope of this article covers: (a) the colleges and universities with recruiting classes ranki ...

Early years

Nolen played high school football at three different schools:

Olive Branch High School Olive Branch High School may refer to: *Olive Branch High School (Olive Branch, Mississippi) *Olive Branch High School (New Carlisle, Ohio) Olive Branch High School was a public high school near New Carlisle, Ohio. History In 1873, a brick struc ...

in Olive Branch, Mississippi, as a freshman and sophomore;

Saint Benedict at Auburndale St. Benedict at Auburndale High School is a diocesan, co-educational, college preparatory school committed to academic excellence through a comprehensive and challenging multi-level curriculum presented in an atmosphere permeated with the aims, ...

in Memphis as a junior; and Powell High School in

Powell, Tennessee Powell, formerly known as Powell Station, is a census-designated place in Knox County, Tennessee, United States. The area is located in the Emory Road corridor ( State Route 131), just north of Knoxville, southeast of Clinton, and east of Oak R ...

, as a senior. He also enrolled for a time at IMG Academy but did not play there. His coach at Powell, Matt Lowe, described him as "a young man who has been blessed with size, speed and athleticism." In his senior year at Powell, he had 93 tackles, 33 tackles for loss, 27 quarterback hurries, and 17 sacks. He was rated by ESPN as the No. 1 football recruit in the 2022 recruiting class. He was ranked No. 2 by

Rivals.com Rivals.com is a network of websites that focus mainly on college football and basketball recruiting in the United States. The network was started in 1998 and employs more than 300 personnel. History Rivals.com was founded in 1998 by Jim Heckma ...

and

247Sports 247Sports is an American network of websites that focus mainly on athletic recruitment in college football and basketball. It is owned and operated by Paramount. The website hosts a large network of team-specific subsites, with each subsite b ...

, behind Travis Hunter. After his senior year, he was invited to play in the

Under Armour All-America Game The Under Armour High School All-America Game is a high school football all-star game typically held in early January in the U.S. state of Florida created to spotlight the nation’s top high school seniors. The game was first played on January 5, ...

. In July 2022, he was named Defensive Football Player of the Year by ''USA Today''. He was also rated by ''USA Today'' as the country's No. 1 recruit for 2022.

College career

Nolen received offers from numerous schools and narrowed his final five to Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, and Tennessee. In November 2021, Nolen committed to play

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

for Texas A&M. He later paid an official visit to Tennessee, raising speculation that his commitment was uncertain. He then signed his letter of intent with Texas A&M in December 2021. He was part of a recruiting class at Texas A&M that was rated as the best in the history of recruiting rankings.

References

External links

Texas A&M Aggies bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nolen, Walter Living people American football defensive tackles Texas A&M Aggies football players Players of American football from Tennessee Sportspeople from Knox County, Tennessee Year of birth missing (living people)