College Football: Oswego East grad Antwain Walker answers call for bowl-bound NIU

Antwain Walker couldn’t have asked for a bigger stage for his first collegiate start.

He surely won’t forget it.

Walker, an Oswego East graduate and true freshman cornerback at Northern Illinois, got the call in the Huskies’ MAC Championship game against Buffalo.

Walker shook off a rough start – as did NIU – as the Huskies scored the last 20 points for a 30-29 win on Nov. 30 in Detroit.

It qualified NIU for the Boca Raton Bowl, where the Huskies will play UAB on Dec. 18 in a game broadcast by ESPN.

“First start, throwing me out there in the championship game, thrown into the fire, it meant a lot,” Walker said. “I was a little out of control at first, but I feel I got a lot better as the game went along.”

Walker’s debut as a starter indeed began in inauspicious fashion.

He gave up two first-half touchdowns to Buffalo’s Anthony Johnson, an NFL prospect, and also was flagged for two pass-interference penalties.

“[Quarterback] Marcus [Childers] came up to me and said to me ‘Hey, I got you,’” Walker said. “I kept fighting. Coaches kept believing in me; I can’t give up on myself.”

Sure enough, Walker came through with four pass-breakups, and also recorded six tackles.

“That’s what you look for in a guy playing in a secondary, is that short-term memory,” NIU cornerbacks coach Melvin Rice said. “Antwain played one of the best wide receivers in the nation. They were picking on him, he gave up two TDs, but you could see he was ready to go out there and compete. That’s what you want to see out of a young player.”

Walker was an All-Area selection as a senior at Oswego East, with 13 pass break-ups and just six catches allowed. He originally committed to Illinois, but reopened his recruitment in December 2017 and joined NIU as an early enrollee.

Rice and the rest of the NIU staff could see the potential in Walker during the spring. The Huskies had three seniors back in the secondary, but Walker kept plugging away.

“I remember one time he came off the field and said ‘What do I need to do to get better?’” Rice said, “and I said, practice harder. He said ‘I got you,’ and he’s practiced hard ever since.”

Athletic, strong and physical, Walker is one of the fastest players on NIU.

Despite limited playing time throughout the season, Walker was ready when his number was called.

“He takes advantage of his speed,” Rice said. “He’s a long corner, which is critical against those big wide receivers. Each week is all about the matchups. We thought it was the right matchup [against Buffalo] and he handled it well.”

“I feel like the game is slowing down for me,” Walker said. “Going up against a guy like [Johnson], a guy who is probably going to get drafted, gave me a lot of confidence.”

Now Walker will set his sights on UAB, as NIU looks to snap a five-game losing streak in bowl games.

“We’re excited,” Walker said. “We want to do something that hasn’t been done here since 2011.”

Conference USA champion UAB, just four years removed from shutting down its program, is led by two-time 1,000-yard rusher Spencer Brown.

“They have a good receiving corps, good guys outside, shifty guys in the slot,” Walker said. “They’re mainly a run-based team, but after their championship game they seemed to come out and try to take some deep shots. You have to prepare for that.”