Transfer Josh Wallace attracted to ‘bigger stage,’ CFP chase at Michigan

By Aaron McMann |
If you run into Josh Wallace in Ann Arbor, give him your best restaurant recommendation.
The newest member of the Michigan football team, Wallace has only been in town for a couple of months now. The graduate transfer defensive back is still getting acclimated to the area, meeting his teammates, learning the playbook and, he said during a recent interview with MLive, learning the best places to get dinner.
“I tried Mani the other day for the first time, the Italian place downtown,” Wallace said. “Pretty good. Just looking forward to trying new spots.”
Wallace is not only intriguing, but he might be the biggest wild card on a Michigan team with few question marks in preseason camp. He transferred to the Wolverines during the summer and got to town in June, making for a swift transition.
Perhaps not coincidentally, the Wolverines are searching for a second starter at cornerback. Will Johnson has the other spot locked down, but a long, drawn out offseason in search of a replacement for D.J. Turner has not yielded a frontrunner.
Enter Wallace, a 6-foot, 190-pound corner from the University of Massachusetts, where he played a bunch and was looked at as a leader. He was a four-year starter and three-time captain, the kind of traits a program like Michigan looks for.
Yet when Michigan assistant coach Chris Partridge dialed Wallace over the summer, one of nearly two-dozen FBS schools to come calling, it came as a surprise. The Bowie, Md., native had no previous relationships with the coaching staff, and didn’t know anyone on the roster.
“The original plan was to get onto a bigger stage and just have the opportunity to compete for a job,” Wallace said. “I just felt like Michigan was the best scenario for me with the other schools at the time.”
Wallace picked Michigan over Oklahoma and Virginia Tech, the three schools he visited, and immediately found his way to Ann Arbor. Since then, he’s done his best to fit in — he’s grown close to fellow defensive back Mike Sainristil (the two bowl together), shares a locker-room stall with running back Blake Corum, but has tried to stay out of the limelight.
Sainristil, speaking at Big Ten Media Days, described Wallace as a quiet, hard-working dude who’s trying to carve out a role.
“Since he got here, he’s been around me and I told him: ‘Look, be around me and I promise you that I’ll help take you to a good place,’” Sainristil said. “But one thing I need him to do is understand that he’s on the team. Josh and I will be talking, and anytime Michigan is brought up he’ll refer to Michigan as ‘you guys,’ as if he’s not on the team.”
True to form, Wallace declined to reveal any individual goals he has for the season. He doesn’t want to rock the boat and says he’s all in for the team, which is coming off back-to-back Big Ten titles and College Football Playoff appearances.
And they’re picked to win the Big Ten again this fall.
“I don’t want to make it too much about myself, ya know? I want to win a national championship,” Wallace said. “I want to do whatever I can to contribute to the team.”
A former basketball star, Wallace didn’t earn his first football scholarship offer until he was a senior in high school. Football was his first love and he set on playing it in college, which explains why he ended up at UMass.
But four years in, having accomplished all there was on a team that was Independent, unaffiliated with a conference, it was time to move on to bigger and better things. He’s now done that, the latest in a string of offseason transfers at Michigan.
“He’s a really good player,” head coach Jim Harbaugh said. “Really good players were wanting to come to Michigan. We’ll keep taking really good players as long as we can.”