BYU plays defense with its back to the wall — Tanner Wall.
The redshirt senior free safety is the quarterback of the defense, and unlike the other side of the ball, Wall is a signal caller with an abundance of experience who already knows he will be on the field Aug. 30 to face Portland State.
Time and battle tested, Wall will make his 17th career start against the Vikings. As a byproduct of his tenure, the frantic pace of the game that discombobulates so many, no longer bothers him.
“It’s a surreal feeling after so much film prep and visualization when you get out there in front of 60,000 people and it just seems like it’s in slow motion,” said Wall, BYU football’s first Academic All-American in 14 years. “That’s how you know you are ready, that you are prepared and you have reached that flow state situation where you can trust your instincts and play ball.”
Wall had interceptions last season against Arizona, Oklahoma State and Arizona State. His thunderous hit on Colorado receiver Jimmy Horn, Jr. early in the second half at the Alamo Bowl led to another turnover when Evan Johnson caught the deflected ball.
“We want to be the best defense in the Big 12 and be a top-ranked defense nationally as well,” Wall said. “We know that turnovers were a huge part of that success last season, so we are going to continue to emphasize getting takeaways at all positions. We’ll go into each game with different goals for turnovers, but as a cumulative plan, we do want to exceed what we put on the field last year.”
BYU’s 29 takeaways, including a nation-leading 22 interceptions, will be tough to top for a unit that led the Big 12 in a handful of defensive categories. Whether the Cougars can pull it off will have much to do with Wall, who is the initiator of every play.
“The first thing I do is to make sure our guys are lined up right with skill matched on skill,” Wall said. “You look at the formation and make sure everyone is in the right spot. We have a lot of adjustments to calls that we can change. You have to make sure to get those in fast so everyone can get lined up and ready to go and react from there.”
Recognizing the unexpected is also Wall’s job.
“We have a baseline of things we make our decisions from. We trust that. We trust the coaching we’ve been given, and we trust our athleticism, too,” he said. “There are going to be times in games when we see new wrinkles and new looks that we aren’t familiar with and our job is to handle it with the techniques that we have been taught.”
Wall, a 6-1 and 205-pound product from Arlington, Virginia, initially walked onto BYU as a receiver but switched to defense in 2023. Academic scholarships fueled his undergraduate degree in finance and now a full scholarship facilitates his MBA efforts in the Marriott School of Business.
Understanding football is child’s play for the returned missionary and husband (married to Corinne, also a BYU grad).
“He’s a guy that knows exactly what to do as far as a scheme standpoint and not just from the safety position, but every position on defense,” said BYU safeties coach Gavin Fowler. “He knows the expectation that coach Kalani (Sitake) and coach (Jay) Hill have for our guys. He’s basically another coach out there.”
Playing next to Wall at strong safety is a much younger and less experienced player — Raider Damuni — who marvels at his mentor.
“He’s a genius in everything,” Damuni said. “Being next to somebody who has had experience and who has played on the biggest stages and to be able to communicate with him, and knowing that he knows everything, it not only boosts my confidence on the field but my teammates around us know that T-Wall is always going to be where he is supposed to be.”
Instinct is a big part of Wall’s game, but only after the homework is done.
“A lot of time people chalk up guys making plays to instincts, and that is a part of it,” Fowler said. “If you don’t have instincts you aren’t going to make them, but the plays he made last year and the plays he is making in camp is because he’s watched so much film and has so much preparation that he knows what’s going to happen before it happens. He is the master of preparing the right way to put him in position to make plays.”
It has also made him the last line of defense for a crew that has no problem playing with their backs to the Wall.
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com.