Full-Circle Moment: After Flipping Commitment to Texas in High School, Billy Walton Readies for First Year at OSU

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STILLWATER — Billy Walton III still remembers the phone call he made to Greg Richmond to tell him he wasn’t going to Stillwater.

A defensive end from Dallas, Walton was a star commit in Oklahoma State’s 2023 recruiting class. He was committed to the Cowboys for about two months, but a visit to Texas led to him flipping that commitment to the Longhorns. Now Walton is finally a Cowboy after joining Richmond and OSU via the transfer portal this offseason.

“It was definitely a tough conversation,” said Walton, recalling his decommitment. “But Coach Rich, how y’all see him, that’s how he is all the time. … I called him, and he was like, ‘This one hurts.’

“I remember the conversation. I was like, dog, that’s tough. It was definitely a hard talk, but I feel like he respected me more because I actually called him and told him instead of texting him or things like that.”

Walton is entering his fourth year of college ball, playing in two games at Texas in 2023 before transferring to SMU, where he played in 22 games across the past two seasons.

Last season saw Walton get his most defensive work to date at SMU. In 74 defensive snaps, Walton made six tackles, two of which were sacks.

Now in Stillwater, Walton is expected to feature in the Cowboys’ defensive line rotation that OSU coach Eric Morris gave another shoutout to on Tuesday.

“Our defensive ends are really, really deep right now,” Morris said. “It doesn’t matter who goes out there first because we don’t think there’s a big drop off. Like, we’ll keep those guys fresh and keep them rolling.”

When mentioning Walton, specifically, Morris noted the 6-foot-3, 253-pound defensive end’s ability to be versatile — not just along the defensive line but also his ability to help on special teams.

Walton comes to OSU with 163 special teams snaps banked across his two years at SMU, primarily coming on kick coverage, which can be a rare spot for a defensive lineman to excel.

“Billy’s a guy I think can play both sides for us,” Morris said. “I think the versatility of Billy is huge. There’s some guys — Jaleel (Johnson) is mainly gonna be an end, Malik Charles mainly gonna be an end, and that’s kinda their skillset. Billy’s a guy that we can rotate and flip-flop from end and rush.

“And the one thing I’ve probably been the most surprised about Billy is his value on special teams right now. He’s a guy that you’ll see run out there and play a couple different positions in special teams as a starter for us right now. I think just anytime you get those big, long, athletic guys that process information fast, Billy fits in that category.”

There’s a familial tie with Walton to OSU, as well, as he is cousins with former OSU corners AJ Green and Jabbar Muhammad. Walton said he grew up coming up to Stillwater for their games. Although Walton took the scenic route after that initial high school commitment, he sounds ready to don the orange and black.

“I feel like it definitely is a full-circle moment,” Walton said. “My Top 3 coming out of high school was Texas, SMU and OSU, and I ended up going to literally every spot. Now I’m here, and I’m here to stay, but I feel like it’s definitely, definitely a full-circle moment. I always loved OSU. …

“I think me going through my college career from Texas to SMU to here, it helped me understand that you have to leave your ego where it is in high school. You can’t bring ego to college. That’s what I did. I’m not gonna lie. Definitely came to Texas thinking I was gonna be this, gonna be that. I figured out I wasn’t, so I ended up transferring. It was kinda the same thing there. I was still young, and then eventually I found my feet. That’s why my second year at SMU, I did better, I was getting in the rotation a little bit. Eventually, I was like, ‘OK, I think I’m ready to take that step to get back to where I was,’ so I decided to come here.”