Miles Hastings was ready to celebrate Oct. 5 after scoring the first rushing touchdown of his career at UC Davis. The senior quarterback stood in the end zone and waited for one of his teammates to come along to hoist him into the air. Such an honor would be another first for the third-year starter.
Hastings has tossed 20 touchdown passes in eight games this season and 62 in his career, but it is the receiver who gets the lift. Hastings usually settles for a pat on the back. With his 3-yard scoring run in the third quarter cutting Portland State’s lead to 23-20, Hastings was deserving of the honor.
Mitchell Dixon was the first player to reach Hastings, but the tight end gave Hastings a chest bump. Another tight end, Winston Williams, tried to lift Hastings by grabbing his shoulder pads. Hastings only got about two inches off the turf, so Williams’ attempt was incomplete.
Center Zaire Collier came to Hastings’ rescue by refusing to let him get away without being properly elevated. The Aggies are averaging 33 points a game, so Collier has had plenty of opportunities as a redshirt freshman to learn that hoisting a teammate “takes a lot of weight room and a lot of leg.”
With Hastings, Collier hoped the quarterback would jump to make the lift a bit easier. “If he didn’t, it would have been like curling 200 pounds or so,” said the Granite Bay High graduate, who added he and this fellow offensive linemen limit their celebratory lifting to wide receivers, running backs and Hastings.
Collier is not the Aggies’ tallest (6-foot-3) or heaviest (300 pounds) offensive lineman, so moving to center made sense even though he had much to learn in a new position. An accurate snap is paramount and Collier has worked to make the snap quicker so he can get to his other assignment – blocking.
Accelerating his snaps has made Collier aware of the inherent risk all centers face in hiking a ball between their legs. Collier laughed when asked if he has had such a painful mishap in his first season of playing the position. “I’ve done it more than I would have liked to,” he said. “It’s not fun.”
At least his Oakley goggles will conceal any tears. Collier admits his vision is bad and that he could not play without the goggles. And if he has to wear them at practice and in games, Collier figured Oakleys would add “a little dazzle, a little flash.” Offensive linemen are not known for being so frilly.
Even with his impaired vision, Collier can see the offensive line has to do a better job of protecting Hastings. UC Davis leads the Big Sky Conference in sacks allowed with 17. That is just three fewer than the past two seasons combined and the Aggies still have four games remaining in the season.
Hastings should be safe Saturday when UC Davis hosts Northern Colorado, which is last in the Big Sky with four sacks. The Aggies still have to face Sacramento State (22 sacks), Montana (17) and Montana State (15). Idaho is second in the Big Sky with 20 sacks and dumped Hastings four times.
The offensive line was rebuilt this season with two redshirt freshmen (Collier and Jace Rodriguez) and three returnees (Eli Simonson, Ernesto Nava and David Main) with minimal experience. Nava is the only senior. Rodriguez arrived this season after one year at Stony Brook University in New York.
“There was a learning curve. We had to build trust in each other,” said Collier, who joked the five linemen can blow a play without anyone knowing because “if we’re all wrong, then we’re all right.”
So much has gone so right for UC Davis in Tim Plough’s first season as head coach at his alma mater. The Aggies are 7-1 and ranked No. 4 in both FCS polls. UC Davis was ranked fifth in the FCS Top 25 list that was announced by the Division I Football Championship Committee on Wednesday.
Plough made a believer of Collier when he had the players’ names removed from the jerseys, Glue residue remains on a few where the names once were. “That was huge in a positive way,” Collier said. “Playing for the team is a lost art. We play for the name on the front of the jersey.”
