According to Tom Keegan, Hastings went to high school with the son of a Friend of Bill Belichick. The friend of Belichick was also the high school football coach of Hastings, who insists that Hastings had a mind blowing workout at Auburn; especially with the short shuttle.
Zack Kelley son of Kevin Kelley said “There were a bunch of high school kids and they all looked like animals, all looked like they could play for Auburn already, 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 can be a shifty guy.’
Hastings High school quarterback Will Hefley suggests that The Patriots use Hastings for onside kicks. "He's good at it." Hastings was recruited by Auburn as an onside kick specialist.
Hasting had two ACL surgeries within a year, one of them ending his 2018 season.
Hefley says they joked in High school about Hastings getting acquired by 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.”
Coach Kelley won several championships and got the attention of Belichick after appearing on HBO.
Zach Kelley said that Belichick met with him and Hastings at Notre Dame during a speaking event. However, that's not all according to Zach. "Every December after that, he has invited us to a game in Foxboro in December. He let us (Hastings and Kelley) go to all the meetings and hang out. We met the players. It was really cool to see that side of it.”
Belichick apparently told coach Kevin Kelley he would watch game film of his players. After hearing about Hastings tryout at Auburn and told him he'd sign Hastings as an undrafted Free agent according to Tom Keegan.
If Belichick did in fact know about Hastings from his Auburn workout, that could be how he found Stidham. Hastings seems to have benefited from being in the right place at the right time. Hastings is still only a UDFA, so he's got a lot of work to earn a roster spot. Although, it appears he has a few odds in his favor.
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