Ingenuity is born from boredom, they say. Some of the best ideas occur when the person having them is otherwise simply piddling around.
Just look at the COVID-19 pandemic, which created a lot of boredom for America’s youth. Make no mistake, it warped a whole generation socially and academically. The proof is in the pudding already just four years later as academic achievement rates have dropped. Those who were in adolescence or older were not as negatively affected. In sports, little appears to have changed.
Students may be behind when it comes to the books, but this is the United States, baby. They didn’t fall behind in sports.
Arkansas Football Has Benefited From COVID… Sort Of
Sam Pittman and Arkansas are enjoying the reaping of that (messed-up) maxim. Luke Hasz, Arkansas’ sophomore tight end, almost never even played football. The boredom created by COVID encouraged the pursuit. And, four years later, he’s considered one of the best players at his position in the entire sport. Oh, and he’s played in a grand total of five games at the collegiate level.
Bixby, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tulsa on the south side of the city, has not been known as a powerhouse for high-school football in Oklahoma for very long. In fact, it was about the time Hasz started playing that the BHS Spartans established themselves as the top team in the Sooner State, kicking iconic Jenks High School and Union High School to the side. Coincidentally, their apex happened just as Hasz first put on a football uniform his sophomore year.
Serendipity, they call that. BHS needed Hasz and turned out Hasz needed football. His twin brother Dylan already played, but Luke was a basketball star. The pandemic wiped out his summer AAU season, though, and left him looking for something to do. They bought a weight rack and bulked up. Shortly after, Dylan told Luke to join him in football offseason. Just mess around and run some routes.
Good call.
“So I started doing that, and then I was like, I might as well just give it a try,” Luke Hasz recently told the Razorback Daily podcast. “And then after my sophomore year, I really just kind of focused on football after that because everything took off.”
Luke Hasz: Kids Don’t Come Out of Nowhere Like He Did
To put it lightly. Less than two calendar years later he was a four-star recruit and top-200 player in the country. He also implied he wasn’t about to go anywhere without Dylan, the guy who brought him into the sport, by his side. Dylan Hasz drew some moderate interest as a three-star safety, but mostly from FCS programs.
According to his 247Sports recruiting profile, the only other non-military FBS school to offer Dylan a scholarship – besides Arkansas – was the private school one city north. Neither brother has come out and said it directly, but it was assumed by those who cover college football that anyone who wanted Luke was going to get Dylan, too.
“I’d say a big part of my recruiting was definitely my twin brother. Him having the ability to come here and play on scholarship, definitely helped me choose to come here,” Luke Hasz said.
Hasz’s rise is almost unheard of in American football. Most star recruits are cultivated in proverbial labs. Ever since Todd Marinovich’s father trained his boy to be the absolute best with a focused intensity unlike anything ever publicly seen before, such training has become almost the norm. Sport specialization dominates, despite the data showing poorer outcomes. And while the most ridiculously talented among us can excel in multiple sports, it’s almost just as rare a player comes out of essentially nowhere, not having even played a particular sport, to become a star so fast.
Temper Expectations, Though, People
OK, “star” may be a bit strong. Personally, I am wary of putting too much on Luke Hasz too soon. The five-game career alone means “Hold yer horses.” Plus, the man is coming off a broken collarbone. Plenty healthy, certainly, he said, but have to keep in mind how many practices, not just games, that injury forced him to miss.
“It’s like missing one day of school and it feels like you’ve missed a whole week,” Hasz said after practice this week. “But no, I’m definitely glad to be back. I feel like they did a great job of bringing me back. Like at a good and early time.”
Internet chatter, morning-radio talk, Razorbacks content creators are all gushing about just how good the former Spartans tight end is. Not how good he could be, but his skill right now. Some say he’s as good as Hunter Henry or DJ Williams, largely considered the two best at the position in school history. For example:
He Hasz What It Takes
Is it out of the question? Of course not. But the odds a player with five college football games under his belt who plays for a 4-8 team catching balls from a quarterback with 11 touchdowns and nine interceptions last year is going to win the trophy as the best tight end in college football…yeah, no.
Relatedly, it reminds me of what friend-of-the-column Deek Kastner said on his radio show with Jon Williams earlier in the week. Deek’s son, who loves the Hogs, asked his father if he thought Taylen Green had a shot at the Heisman Trophy. Apparently, word around the hardcore fandom is Green equals Cam Newton. When the DJ/emcee said that was a stretch, the young man listed off a bevy of reasons why it could happen.
Top of the list should be “Luke Hasz catches 80 balls.” It’s not happening any other way. And you better believe the potential exists on Hasz’s end. His two-touchdown game against BYU last year and his one-score, 117-yard game against LSU the following week suggest a dynamic talent who can change games. Arkansas is hoping so. After all, the Razorbacks almost never had him.
Thank COVID, I guess.
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Listen to the entire Luke Hasz interview here:
More on Arkansas football from BoAS:
