STARKVILLE — Jaden Walley was no more than a year old when he muttered his first word.
“Ball!” he said through the slurred and drooly speech only a months-old baby could muster.
The eldest of three boys, Walley was always surrounded by sports. From birth, he had a soccer ball, football and basketball within reach. As he grew, he excelled on the football and baseball fields.
Athletics ran in the family too. Younger brother Justin is a 2021 Minnesota football signee, while his mother, Kandice McCann, earned scholarships in softball and basketball at Jones College. His father, Oliver Walley, also played on the basketball team and ran track at Greene County High School during his prep days.
“He was never quiet,” McCann said of Jaden’s personality as a kid. “Whenever the teachers needed something, he was always the one they picked.”
A converted quarterback from his time at D’Iberville High School, Jaden, now 19 years old, is in the midst of the best freshman campaign of any first-year Mississippi State receiver in program history. Teaming with quarterback and classmate Will Rogers, the pair have been the wizards behind the curtain in MSU’s late-season surge from offensive ineptitude to suddenly competent and, at times, dangerous.
But Walley is far from the melodramatic, arrogant stereotype big-time receivers can often fit. Rather, he’s a homebody who FaceTimes his mother every single day. He enjoys hunting and fishing, even if he only comes across a single deer during a day in the woods. He dons work boots and backwards ball caps around town.
In short, he’s the perfect fit for the blue-collar program oozing with potential in Starkville.
“I knew that I’d get a few snaps and all, but it’s been a surprise that I’m playing as much as I have and getting the opportunity,” Walley said in mid-November. “I just feel blessed to be able to step up and fill and play this role.”
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Jaden Walley never intended to leave Greene County High School.
Having spent his freshman year quarterbacking the Leakesville based-Wildcats, he enjoyed the acclaim a 1,200-yard passing and 1,000-yard rushing season brings. Just a few months into high school, Walley was the big man on campus in a town and at a high school for which his parents previously competed. That quickly changed.
Walley and his family moved to D’Iberville after his freshman year. Jaden was none too pleased with the idea. He even asked his father if he could stay behind at Greene County while the rest of the family departed.
“It hurt me,” Oliver said. “That was tough, there. I hated to take him out of a place where he felt so comfortable, but it worked out for the best.”
Success had always followed Jaden in his youth. From his time as a Pee Wee football standout to learning to ride a bike without ever attaching a set of training wheels, he excelled in anything and everything.
Ever an extrovert, Jaden found his footing at D’Iberville in sports. After earning a dynamic reputation on the field at Greene County, the accolades that came with it had suddenly vanished. His new surroundings forced him into a renewed work ethic.
Taking over as the head coach at D’Iberville ahead of Walley’s senior year, Larry Dolan first encountered the do-it-all athlete outside the school field house. Peering onto the baseball diamond, Dolan was greeted by Walley push-mowing the field in shorts, a backwards hat and a pair of work boots. A quick conversation ensued. The pair traded thoughts on football, at first, before the discussion devolved into hunting and fishing banter.
Their marriage, Dolan thought, would work out just fine.
In his lone year under Dolan’s guidance, Walley offered flashes of the all-world ability that made him a star in Starkville this fall. Shifting in spells from quarterback to wing back and receiver in hopes of sparking the D’Iberville offense, Walley and the Warriors lined up around their own five-yard line against eventual MHSAA 4A runner-up Poplarville in Week 3 of the 2019 season. Dashing off the line and past his defender on the outside, Walley secured a reception on a fade route, blew by the rest of the Poplarville defensive backs and sprinted for a 90-plus-yard score.
Three weeks later, Dolan employed a double pass against Ocean Springs. Catching the ball on the outside, the deep route Walley was supposed to hit after his initial reception was bottled up. Instead, he reversed fields, dipped and darted through the Greyhounds defense and scampered downfield for a 60-yard touchdown.
“Your normal kid would have pouted and probably quit,” Dolan said in reference to Walley’s shifting positions as much as he did as a senior. “But Jaden Walley is the kind that when he said, ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to win,’ he really meant it.”
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For all the accolades Walley has accrued in his initial season in Starkville, there have been layers to the experience.
After moving him into his dorm in June, McCann concedes she cried the entire ride back to southern Mississippi. Jaden, too, had his bouts with homesickness early, and he still FaceTimes his mother daily.
“I can say to people all day, but I can’t describe the feeling I got inside,” McCann said of Jaden’s transition to college. “It’s like I knew he could do it, but to see it actually happen and happening every day is amazing.”
As Walley transitioned off the field, teammates and coaches began to see glimpses of his game-changing ability toward the latter part of fall camp. Oliver Walley says Jaden’s comfort manifested after MSU’s 41-0 throttling at the hands of No. 1 Alabama. Put bluntly, he felt like he belonged.
Following a two-week break after MSU’s Nov. 7 win over Vanderbilt, Walley notched four straight 100-yard receiving games, broke Mardye McDole’s four-decade old single-season freshman receiving record and helped the Bulldogs to a thrashing of Missouri in the Dec. 19 regular season finale.
For Oliver Walley, Jaden’s all-time freshman year has offered reminders of the past. Having coached Jaden from four years old until he was 12, he saw the growth of his eldest child on the field. Jaden’s one-handed catch along the sidelines in a narrow miss against in-state rival Ole Miss caught the attention of everyone from local media members to national pundits. That he held onto the catch through the emphatic shoulder crunch from Ole Miss defensive back Jalen Jordan elicited vivid memories of Jaden being throttled by a pair of towering defensive linemen in a travel football game in Jacksonville, Florida, that left a chunk of turf in his face mask. But as he did as a pre-teen, Jaden picked himself off the turf in Oxford and raced back toward the huddle, ready for the next play.
Jaden, too, remains the humble, yet successful child his parents raised on manners and politeness. Despite his recent success, he’s quick to congratulate teammates on the sidelines and persistently shifts praise on others in postgame media sessions when asked about his own game.
Thursday, he’ll be a focal point of an MSU offense looking to close a forgettable 2020 campaign on a high note in the Armed Forces Bowl against No. 24 Tulsa.
Nearly 18 years ago, Walley muttered the word “ball” for the first time. Today, his ability to catch them has plenty of others talking about him too.
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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