Last year, while Ricardo Louis, Melvin Ray and the rest of the Auburn receivers played right in front of him as he watched on the sideline, Will Hastings wondered if he would ever get an opportunity like that.
The 5-foot-9 receiver from Arkansas wasn’t even supposed to be there, but one domino knocked down another, and he found himself lining up against the No. 2 team in the country last week.
Hastings was a prolific high school receiver at Pulaski Academy, where he also kicked. But because Pulaski rarely kicks anything other than onside kicks, he didn’t have many opportunities there. A few Division II colleges offered him: Ouachita Baptist, Henderson State and Northern Arkansas all wanted Hastings on scholarship. Any of those would’ve been reasonable choices, seeing as none of them are too far from his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas. But the year before graduating, he decided it wasn’t enough.
“I had a couple of D-II schools offer me and no one else gave me an opportunity. My family, friends and my whole high school believed in me and I called Auburn a couple days before signing day,” Hastings said. “I did a kicking camp here before the summer going into my senior year and I called a couple day before (signing day) and said, ‘What’s going on?’ I kept coming to the games and they kept recruiting me. They said we want you to be a preferred walk-on.”
He joined Auburn as a kicker in 2015, but before fall camp this season, the coaches made the decision to switch his position, and it was only really by necessity.
“When I first came here, I didn’t make fall camp my freshman year and then they called me when Duke got in trouble and said, ‘Hey, we need you to be another body for fall camp,’” Hastings said. “I came in and didn’t really do too well and then the rest of my freshman year I was a kicker."
“Then the winter came and I did all of the agility drills. I think that’s when it all took off. In the spring I did some good things at receiver, they moved me there and from there on it’s been [receiver].”
The second time around, Hastings stuck. A few weeks later, when fall camp wrapped up, his name was there on the two-deep depth chart, and he suited up at receiver for Auburn’s opener against Clemson.
In his first game, Hastings reeled in three catches for 29 yards, all of which went for first downs — including an 11-yard catch on 4th and 4 in the final quarter.
"He’s got some natural things to him," said Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn. "For a new guy, you worry if the moment is too big, but obviously it wasn’t for him. He did well in pressure moments, and I thought that was encouraging."
There hasn’t been much time for Hastings to absorb the sudden and drastic change in his role, but he’s getting there.
“It’s starting to set in,” Hastings said. “I never really thought it’d come true but it definitely has come true.”
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