Who is Trevin Wallace? Carolina Panthers draft Kentucky pass rusher in third round

The Carolina Panthers have drafted a defensive player — and it comes in inside linebacker Trevin Wallace.

The 6-foot-1, 237-pound athletic hybrid playmaker with renowned closing speed was chosen by the Panthers with the 72nd overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft. He’s the first defensive player drafted by the general manager Dan Morgan-led Panthers after Carolina took wideout Xavier Legette in the first round and running back Jonathon Brooks in the second.

Here are five things to know about the Panthers’ third-round selection.

1. Wallace was team captain at Kentucky

Wallace has some likeable measureables and is versatile — a word Panthers head coach Dave Canales keeps coming back to — and that is what elevated his NFL prospect status to a third-round pick.

At Kentucky, his 2023 season ended with 80 tackles, 8.5 tackles for loss, 5.5 sacks and an interception. He was a team capatin that year. In 2022 he put up similar marks, and in 2021 he was named to the SEC All-Freshman Team. He played every game for Kentucky and hasn’t missed time in college due to injury.

2. Wallace has a talented brother

Trevin isn’t the only football player in the family. His younger brother, Tavion, is a four-star 2025 linebacker from Wayne County High School in Jesup, Georgia, with offers from Florida State, Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, among others.

3. A 237-pound track and field athlete

Canales loves dissecting players’ stories: finding inflection points and expositions, analyzing causes and effects. He loves it when his players identify those story markers themselves, too. Part of Wallace’s athletic journey — and part of the eye-opening athleticism he clearly possesses — was the fact that he was a state champion long jumper in high school and broke a record that had existed for 44 years.

That record? 23-4 1/4. At 225 pounds to boot.

“To be that big and to jump that, it was kind of insane,” he told reporters Friday night. “A lot of people didn’t believe I jumped that. ... But it’s true!”

4. Wallace plays ‘determined’ and with ‘swagger’ ... with a McDonald’s hustle

When asked how to describe his playing style, Wallace used words draft analysts might use. He plays “determined,” he said, and “with swagger.” But then the fast-talking, fun linebacker dove into his past and explained where he got his motor — picking up early morning shifts at McDonald’s.

“When I worked there, my mother was the general manager, so I did everything,” Wallace said. “From cashier, to windows, to the tables, to the grill. Every day, even after high school games when we get home at 11 o’clock, I had to get up at 5 in the morning. And I’m like, ‘Mom, I just got out of a game.’ And she’s like, ‘Hey, the world ain’t gonna slow down for you. So you better get some money in your pocket while you can.’

“So I just do that every time. I used to get tired of it, but hey, when you’re 16 years old and got your own money, you can go where you want. And that’s a win to me.”

He’s also a proud father of two girls, he said.

“I have a family of my own. I have two beautiful girls,” Wallace said. “So you know, coming in at 20 years old with that is a lot. You have two mouths to feed. ... Every time I come home, I say, ‘This is who I’m doing this for. These are my baby girls. This is who I’m providing for.’”

5. ‘I’m from the South’

Everyone knows Xavier Legette is country. He held his draft party in his rural hometown in Mullins, South Carolina, and he rides horses and his country elocution has become a national story in the past few days.

Wallace? He’s country, too. (When he visited the Panthers, the team took him to a golf simulator. He is a novice golfer by his own admission: “I’m from the South. We don’t do golf. We go huntin’.”)

“I go hog hunting a lot,” he said, when asked about some of his favorite non-football pastimes. “Sometimes, what we do is, if it rains, we just, you know, have fun playing in the mud, roll around in it.”