OT Nolan Hay (6-4 300) is a transfer from Incarnate Word who immediately drew major college attention when he put his name into the Portal. He and his agent quickly arraigned official visits with South Carolina, Washington State and Colorado.
But over the weekend, Hay took an official visit to Oklahoma State. Sunday night he said he had dropped Washington State and Colorado from consideration, and now his focus is on the Cowboys and Gamecocks.
USC offensive line coach Lonnie Teasley and others from the program reached out to Hay once he was in the Portal. From there his agent provided contact information, and he and Teasley were able to talk. That quickly led to the scheduling of an official visit. Hay said his interest in the Gamecocks is real.
“I think it’s just how good they’ve been as of recently, especially in conferences like the SEC and the level that they are at,” Hay said. “The program is a winning program, especially lately. That’s really what it is at the end of the day. Everyone is about money nowadays, but we play this game to compete and win. South Carolina was a top 25 team last season and they played really well. I’m a very competitive guy and I just want to win at the highest level possible. I’m pretty excited about South Carolina.”
Whether it’s Oklahoma State or USC as the choice, Hay will have to make hay the rest of this spring and the summer to catch up with the linemen who went through spring practice. Shane Beamer, however, always preaches competition within the Gamecock program and believes that with the exception of quarterback, all other positions remain up for grabs. That’s all Hay wanted to hear from the Gamecocks.
“From what they’ve told me, it seems like they want me to come in and take someone’s spot,” Hay said. “If they give me the opportunity to do that, I’m pretty confident that I will take someone’s spot. I know I played the FCS level,l and the SEC is very different, but I have 2200 snaps under my belt. I kind of know what college all is all about. I think that kind of matters pretty big nowadays.”
Also big for Hay is his versatility.
“I can play all five (OL positions),” he said. “My freshman year I played the first eight games at left guard then got a concussion and was out the rest of the year. My sophomore year I played center the first four games, then our right tackle gave up a good amount of sacks against Western Kentucky and they moved me to right tackle, and I played the rest of the season there. I transferred over to UIW and I played all the games at right tackle. I flipped to right guard sometimes so we could get some young guys some reps, but I can play all five. That’s not a big deal.”
Hay is coming off his first official visit to Stillwater and moved up his official visit to USC to this Tuesday instead of waiting until this weekend. As he takes these visits, there’s two points of emphasis he wants to be made by each program.
“It’s at least getting the opportunity to start,” Hay said. “I know I’m not going to be given a starting spot anywhere I go. I know everything is earned, but at least being given an opportunity to run with the ones and twos so that I can get games played and snaps. That’s really what it is in the NFL. They look for guys who have playing time, who actually have played many snaps. That’s really a big one that I’m looking for on all these visits. The other one is really my development. What place is going to develop me to be stronger, be faster, to be more explosive to where I can dominate at any level. That’s right there with playing time. That determines my future as well and how long I’ll play.”
As he prepares for the trip to Columbia, Hay admitted the decision could go either way.
“I can really see myself going to one of those two places. I’m down to my top two right now,” Hay said. “I’d like to go earlier (to USC) because I had a really good time at Oklahoma State and I don’t want to make a decision off of bias, because I’ve been here and I hear all these good things from all these coaches. I basically want to even out the playing field by getting to talk to these coaches to see which one I really think is going to be the better decision.”
Hay, who is a native of Katy, TX, said he will make his decision by the end of the USC visit or the day after.