A prototypical Patriot
Hastings fits the mold of past slot WRs to make it in Foxboro
It seemed a reasonable assumption that the Patriots signed undrafted receiver Will Hastings of Auburn to give Tom Brady’s successor a security blanket. Jarrett Stidham and Hastings had great chemistry, each having his best collegiate season the one year they played together. Not only that, Stidham will be a groomsman in Hastings’ wedding, originally scheduled for this summer.
Yet a deeper look at Hastings’ background makes it evident that if he had gone to East Bemidji State and his college quarterback’s name had been Joe Shlabotnik, Hastings would still be where he is now: anxiously awaiting the opening of Patriots training camp, whenever that might be.
Hastings was born to be a Patriot, and not because his high school coach, Kevin Kelley of Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Arkansas, is friends with Bill Belichick (although that is how the Patriots first found out about him).
When trying to identify the Patriots’ interest in receivers, it’s always best to look at a drill that goes by many names: the 20-yard shuttle, the short shuttle, the pro agility drill, the 5-10-5 drill. Deion Branch had the second-fastest time ever (3.76) at the NFL combine. Julian Edelman, a quarterback at Kent State, had a faster time in the drill than any receiver at the combine that year. Wes Welker’s time was far better than his 40 time.
Hastings’ Pulaski teammate and fellow receiver Zack Kelley, the coach’s son, went with Hastings to a prospects camp in Auburn heading into Kelley’s junior and Hastings’ senior year of high school.
“There were a bunch of high school kids and they all looked like animals, all looked like they could play for Auburn already,” Kelley remembered. “He’s 5-10, 170 maybe, and I’m 5-7, 150, and we roll up and we’re like, ‘Ooh, we don’t belong here.’ And Will runs a 5-10-5. I’ll never forget the look on that coach’s face. He couldn’t believe he ran it that fast and said, ‘Run it again.’ So Will runs it again and the coach who’s timing him says, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s the fastest time we’ve ever had at a recruiting camp.’ Him running that and seeing that coach’s face light up in disbelief, I think that sparked Will’s belief in himself, made him think, ‘I can do this. I might not be as big and as strong as these guys, but I canbeashiftyguy.’”
Still, despite amassing more than 2,000 receiving yards as a senior, Hastings did not receive a Division I scholarship, and had to take the back door as a preferred walk-on, onside-kick specialist at Auburn.
Head coach Kevin Kelley is known most for two things at Pulaski Academy: winning championships and employing quirky, analyticsbased strategy. Until the game has reached the blowout stage, Kelley always opts for an onside kick. His teams average one punt a year and always go for two points after touchdowns.
Will Hefley, Hastings’ quarterback at Pulaski, continued his football career as a backup at Tulsa and will continue his education in medical school at Vanderbilt.
Hefley said that the next time the Patriots need to attempt an onside kick, he wouldn’t be surprised to see his favorite receiver trot out there.
“Will’s great at it,” Hefley said.
It’s probably to Hastings’ benefit that he wasn’t so great at it in his two attempts at Auburn. He worked his way into getting a look at receiver, and as a sophomore with Stidham throwing to him, Hastings caught 26 passes, four for touchdowns, and averaged 20.2 yards per reception. He underwent two ACL surgeries in less than a year and missed the next season, Stidham’s second and final one at Auburn. As a senior in 2019, Hastings caught 19 passes for 222 yards and a touchdown.
Hefley said he wasn’t at all surprised to learn from the Pulaski Academy Twitter account that his old teammate had signed with the Patriots.
“We used to joke with him all the time: ‘You know Hastings, you keep doing this, you better watch out, Belichick’s going to keep his eye on you.’ And here we are,” said Hefley, who once threw eight touchdown passes in the first half. “We would tell him he was going to be a Julian Edelman or a Wes Welker, and here we are.”
Pulaski has won eight state championships under Kelley, including five in the past six years.
“We won a state championship our senior year,” Hefley said. “I knew when I got the ball to Will anywhere on the field there was a 50-50 chance he was going to take it to the house. He’s got an unbelievable amount of athleticism. He’s just so much quicker than about anybody you’re going to come across. His lateral movements, he just breaks ankles all over the place, putting people on the ground.”
Hefley couldn’t understand the absence of a D-I offer for his favorite target.
“It bothered him and it bothered me too,” Hefley said. “He was one of the best athletes in the nation. He’s a freak. And his hands were as good as anybody’s.”
Zack Kelley said he wondered at the time if his fellow receiver was doing the right thing heading to Auburn: “Even I was thinking, ‘No, Will, go somewhere small like me. Go to a D-II place and just play a lot. You’ll be happy. They’ll let you play receiver.’ He always was a guy who wanted a bigtime place. And he did it.”
Kevin Kelley’s unorthodox methods have garnered national attention. He was featured on HBO Real Sports and in national publications. His success and innovations piqued the interest of Belichick.
“My father was speaking at Notre Dame (in 2015) and when Coach Belichick heard we were going to be nearby, he got us tickets to their game in Indianapolis,” Zack said. “When the players were getting on the bus after leaving the locker room, coach Belichick sat outside and talked to us for a while. Every December after that, he has invited us to a game in Foxboro in December. He let us go to all the meetings and hang out. We met the players. It was really cool to see that side of it.”
As for how those meetings go down, Kelley knew enough not to a whisper a word of that.
He said that his father let him know about Hastings. Belichick made no promises, studied his film, heard about his shuttle time, and eventually let Hastings’ high school coach know that they intended to sign him if he went undrafted.
“He’ll fit in just fine,” Zack Kelley predicted.
He’s getting a shot, which alone is remarkable for a player who was recruited as an onside-kick specialist and underwent a pair of ACL surgeries in college.