ESPN College Football

Posted by ESPN.com's Chris Low

Wesley Walls still hears Mississippi calling.

“It will always be home to me, and I’m going to get back there for good someday. It’s not a matter of if, but when,” said Walls, an All-SEC tight end for Ole Miss in 1988 and later a five-time Pro Bowler with the Carolina Panthers.

	Bruce Kluckhohn/US PRESSWIRE
	Wesley Walls made the Pro Bowl five of his seven seasons with the Carolina Panthers.

Walls, who grew up not too far from Oxford in nearby Pontotoc, Miss., makes his home in Charlotte, N.C., these days. He and his wife, Christy, stayed there after his 15-year NFL career ended in 2003.

On Saturday, he’ll be back in the Magnolia State, specifically Vaught-Hemingway Stadium cheering on his beloved Rebels in one of the most anticipated games they’ve played in decades against No. 3-ranked Alabama.

With Walls in the house, karma could be on the Rebels’ side.

The last time Ole Miss beat a nationally ranked Alabama team was 21 years ago when Walls was a senior. He had seven catches for 79 yards in that game, and the Rebels upset the No. 12-ranked Crimson Tide 22-12 in Tuscaloosa.

The 1988 Alabama game remains one of Walls’ fondest memories from his playing days at Ole Miss, although it was anything but for Bill Curry, who was in his second year as Alabama’s head coach and watched in horror as the Crimson Tide went the entire game without completing a pass.

That next week, the infamous brick was hurled through Curry’s office window.

Walls said he ran into Curry a few years ago while attending the SEC Championship Game and introduced himself.

“He told me he tried to get the name of the person who threw the brick, because he wanted to get him to play quarterback for him that next week after going 0-for-16 or whatever he was against us,” Walls quipped.

“I just remember we ruined their homecoming by scoring a bunch of points in the final minute. They were dedicating Coach (Bear) Bryant’s museum and everything. It was the biggest win of my four years at Ole Miss.”

It also remains Ole Miss’ only win over Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

“I have so many great memories of Ole Miss that go well beyond football,” Walls said. “It was the best experience of my life, the four years I spent there. The funny thing is that I committed to Alabama at first. My uncle took me to a game there, and I sort of got star-struck. But I’d given the Ole Miss coaches my word that I wouldn’t cancel my visit there.

“And when I got there on my visit, I knew I couldn’t leave. It was where I belonged, so I changed my mind and haven’t looked back since, not one time.”

Now 43, Walls has been working in commercial real estate the last four years. His company, Pavilion Development, specializes in single tenant retail. He does some traveling, but always hustles back on Friday in time to see his 16-year-old son, Colton, play high school football. He’s a junior linebacker at Charlotte Latin.

Walls’ oldest daughter, Jennifer, is at Ole Miss working on her master’s degree in chemistry. His youngest daughter, Alex, is 18 and a freshman at Appalachian State.

“It’s hard to believe that we’re going to be empty-nesters here in another two years,” Walls said.

One of the amazing things about Walls’ career at Ole Miss is that he didn’t play tight end until his senior season. And even then, he continued to play some defense as a stand-up pass-rusher on third down.

“We’d just hired Red Parker as our offensive coordinator before my senior year, and I remember him telling me to give him two weeks at tight end in the spring just to see how I liked it,” Walls recounted. “I wasn’t sure about it, but he kept telling me I was a natural at tight end.

“As it turns out, it was an easy transition. I had good hands, caught the ball well and knew the tight end tendencies because I had to go against them a lot when I was at linebacker.”

Parker obviously knew what he was talking about. Walls went on to become one of the best pass-catching tight ends of his era in the NFL and made the Pro Bowl five of his seven seasons with the Panthers.

A three-time Academic All-SEC selection, Walls earned his degree from Ole Miss in general engineering. He also earned the respect of the Rebels’ fans for how hard he played during some lean times for the program that were made even harder by NCAA probation.

Walls said it was an honor to play for an “old-school coach” like Billy Brewer.

“I can still remember him calling the defense together my sophomore year (1986) when we beat LSU," Walls said. "We played our guts out and had a big goal-line stand in that game, and he pointed to the end zone we were defending and said, ‘Back in 1958, we stopped their ass right there in the same end zone, and we’re going to stop their ass again today.’

“I loved that guy. He was so full of tradition and stories like that, and he’d always tell them to us.”

Walls said the best players he played against in the SEC were the late Derrick Thomas at Alabama, Florida’s Emmitt Smith and Arkansas’ Steve Atwater. He can still recite the names of all those Georgia running backs, too.

“They just kept cranking them out … Rodney Hampton, Lars Tate, Tim Worley,” Walls recounted. “I’m just glad I moved to tight end.”

The best player he played with was linebacker Tony Bennett, who went on to play several years in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers and Indianapolis Colts.

“We came in together as linebackers, and he was a great player,” Walls said. “He got injured in the pros or might still be playing today.”

Over and above football, what Walls treasures most about his time at Ole Miss were the friendships he made. So many of them have endured.

“When you go to the Grove now, you see the same people who’ve had the same tent for 20 years,” Walls said. “That’s what’s so special about Ole Miss. We may be separated by hundreds of miles and tens of years. But once you get back on that campus and see each other, it almost feels like you’ve got to get up on Monday morning and go to class.

“There’s just a family environment to it that takes you back to the good ol’ days.”