Image courtesy of @JuiceWa45 (Twitter)

With the blessing of head coach Don Brown, UMass defensive analyst Julius Walker had the opportunity of a lifetime last week despite some important business going on back home.

Despite only coaching college ball for a couple of seasons ‘Juice’ was able to represent UMass in Orlando during the Hula Bowl. For a young coach, any of the pre-draft All Star games are invaluable networking events and also provide a chance to see just how much football you know or don’t know still, even if it meant missing out on a huge recruiting weekend.

“I reached out to Coach Brown and he was like ‘hey, you’ve got to do it. We had a big recruiting weekend this weekend as well, so it just shows you who Coach Brown is,” Walker said in a phone interview on Monday. “We had a couple DB’s come in and thank God they all committed, you know. I mean, we had a BIG recruiting weekend here and I’m somewhere else. He understood and gave me the nod and was like, hey, you’ve got to do this.’

“It just enhanced my love for him more and how he’s always looked out for me.”

With a mutual connection to Hula Bowl CEO & owner Nick Logan, Walker got a phone call about the unique opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

“A long, long time friend that I know, he had a connection to (Nick),” Walker explained. “Nick reached out to me and was like ‘hey, are you interested? I’ve heard some really good things about you.’ Before I went into coaching college I did a lot of work at the high school level and with the youth and camps, things like that. So, he said he loves my passion and would love to have me out. he thought it’d be a great opportunity for me, a great networking situation as well and then I reached out to Coach Brown.”

The networking part was one thing, but as far as future recruiting goes, these types of All Star weeks are massive, especially if players have younger siblings that will soon be on everyone’s radar.

“I got a chance to meet (Nick) Logan, I got a chance to meet and work with some great coaches that have coached a long time in the NFL and made some great connections,” Walker said. “I was able to have dinner a couple nights with the coaches. They got a chance to know who I am and I got a chance to know them more in depth and exchange contacts. Those situations don’t happen very often in a lifetime.

“Honestly, it’s probably really good for recruiting too when you’ve got guys with younger siblings who you may be talking to in a few years.”

Walker reveled in the chance to coach players from other big time programs and even got a few compliments about UMass from guys in SEC country.

“In our room alone, we had a corner from Alabama, had a corner from Tennessee. We had two corners from Ole Miss, just different places,” he said. “Those guys got to see me coach and they were like ‘aw man, you guys got some dawgs coming out of UMass!’

As for the Hula Bowl game itself, that was sort of the cherry on top of it all, even if a W wasn’t in the cards, the experience as a whole was fantastic.

“The game day experience was amazing,” he said. “This is still football, so we wanted to win and didn’t win, but we fought to the end and had a chance to come back. One thing I thought that stood out was…obviously, each and every one of those guys is very talented, but they’re just super humble and ready to work. It’s an All Star game, so a lot of times guys are taking it easy and relax, but they were ready to work all week long.

“They’d come back for extra film, they’d call, they’d ask me about techniques. It was a surreal experience.”

All of this of course happened with Walker rocking his Minutemen gear all week. The ability to represent the program and talk to other coaches about the rebuild was quite special for a guy who played for a legend like Brown.

“I made sure I went down there with my UMass apparel everywhere I went,” he said with a laugh. “Coach Brown is legendary and his work is legendary. Literally every person that saw my hat or jacket would be like ‘hey, UMass, yeah, yeah, yeah out in Amherst,’ then we’d start talking about Coach Brown and everyone knew him. They call him Dr. Blitz and they just asked about our season and a lot of them had seen our first game against New Mexico (State) and loved the way we looked.

“Obviously, we lost our quarterback the second game and had some struggles from there, but overall there was a lot of interest. A lot of people asked about UMass. It meant the world to me to be able to represent our program.”

It’s hard to call a three-win season a program changer, but last year may have been for UMass and the rest of the country is noticing. Players, coaches, executives, everyone.

Walker got to hear and see it first hand during an unforgettable week.

“Yes, absolutely. The country does view UMass as up-and-coming,” he added. “There’s a lot of belief that we’re a good football program.”