‘I’m ready to go’: Huskers land versatile West Coast playmaker Ashton Hayes | Recruiting

The worst game Ashton Hayes ever played came the first week of his junior season last fall.

The running back from Reno, Nevada, had transferred from Damonte Ranch to McQueen, but the coronavirus pandemic had cut the season and all of the preparations short. After about a week of practice, Hayes rushed for only 50 yards on 28 carries behind an inexperienced offensive line.

It was a rough start for Hayes, who had piled up terrific numbers as a sophomore, when he rushed for 2,429 yards and 30 touchdowns, and added 346 receiving yards and a pair of scores.

“Due to the fact that we started off kind of, literally we had seven days or eight days of practice before our first game, there was a pretty steep learning curve (for the offensive line),” McQueen head coach Jim Snelling said. “It really wasn’t on (Hayes) as much as it was on us to create more running lanes for him.”  

Even still, Snelling found his highly touted running back doing something a bit outside the norm on the following Monday.

“He was there with the offensive line, pre-practice, working on the sled with them and just trying to make sure they knew he was in it with them,” Snelling said.

Hayes averaged about 140 yards per game over McQueen’s last four games. In the process, he whittled his 11 offers down to a pair of finalists: Cal and Nebraska. Then, after taking official visits to both schools over the first two weekends in June, he verbally pledged to the Cornhuskers on Thursday.