Football Friday: For One Chicagoland Player Entering the Transfer Portal, "I Don't Think I Could Have Done Any Better."
How Lake Forest product Richie Hoskins went from under-recruited high school star to college football's premier conference, the SEC
When the 2021 football season neared its end, Richie Hoskins didn’t know if he’d stay or go.
A freshman at Division 3 Middlebury College (located in Middlebury, Vermont), Hoskins enrolled in the school with the best intentions.
Playing quarterback for the Lake Forest Scouts, he’d been the North Suburban Conference Player of the Year in the abbreviated six-game spring season of 2021 (the 2020 fall season in Illinois was cancelled by Governor JB Pritzker due to unproven concerns about Covid).
Immediately following the conclusion of the spring high school football season, the 6-foot-1, 180-pound Hoskins swapped football pads for lacrosse gear. He proceeded to lead the Scouts to the boys lacrosse state championship game (Lake Forest lost to Loyola), earn all-state honors and become a U.S. Lacrosse High School All-American.
If history is any guide, the best player in two different sports – football and lacrosse – should have a plethora of collegiate options.
But Covid-related restrictions in 2020-21 severely limited in-person recruiting for 2021 grads. Hoskins’ senior film consisted of six games with no playoffs. To best utilize his speed and game-breaking ability, Lake Forest’s offensive system that spring leaned heavily on quarterback runs.
“I didn’t throw the ball much in high school,” Hoskins said. “I maybe have three throws on my highlight tape.”
While praiseworthy, the one-dimensional aspect to Hoskins’ football resume compounded the other obstacle of minimal one-on-one contact with recruiters.
College coaches evaluating Hoskins were left with an unanswerable question: is he a quarterback or an exceptional athlete (ATH) who just so happens to be under center?
Middlebury came calling with a super-sized offer: Hoskins could play both football and lacrosse. Middlebury’s academic bonafides appealed to Hoskins, a National Honor Society student. He accepted the offer from the Panthers.
On May 3, 2022, almost a year after saying yes to Middlebury, Hoskins announced he was moving from Vermont to Tennessee.
How Hoskins got to Vanderbilt is a story of persistence and resolve, but also a function of today’s agile college football climate where no decision is permanent.
It was probably over Thanksgiving, maybe the Christmas holidays, when Hoskins first initiated conversations with his parents, Rick and Niki, about leaving Middlebury.
He liked the school, teammates and coaches, but for the first time in his sporting life, Hoskins was mostly a spectator rather than participant.
“The best athletes were not getting on the field. To not play for a couple of years and sit around and wait, that didn’t make sense to me,” Hoskins said. “I didn’t feel like I was living up to my potential and needed to put my best foot forward.”
He entered the transfer portal.
A call for advice to his high school coach, Chuck Spagnoli, led to a connection with Vanderbilt.
The head coach at Vanderbilt, Clark Lea, instructed Hoskins to reach out to the school’s recruiting coordinator, Nik Valdiserri.
Soon after, he did hear from Valdiserri. He told Hoskins the school was interested in taking him as a PWO, or preferred walk-on.
“Obviously, I’m not a blue chip, four-or-five star guy and they never really told me specifically what they liked about me,” Hoskins said. “When we talked, it was more like ‘we’re going to take you, let’s not waste any time talking about anything else. Let’s figure this out.’”
A trip to Nashville was arranged and in late January, Hoskins visited the Vanderbilt campus. The football operations aesthetics were an easy buy in (“I got to put on the uniform and do the photoshoot which is probably the coolest about the whole thing,” he said) but the program culture pitch from the coaches sold Hoskins on the opportunity.
At Middlebury, his view from the sidelines deceived what his eyes were telling him. He knew he could play at that level of football and as a freshman. But at Vanderbilt, as long as he did his part, there would be a more clear path to playing time.
“A lot of times what happens at these bigger schools, these kids will come in and think that they’re all that and they don’t play and they just enter the transfer portal. (Vanderbilt) wants guys who aren’t that and don’t have that mentality,” Hoskins said. “They want guys to come into the program, grow for one to two years, then contribute for two to three years. That’s what I really liked, how they put an emphasis on development.”
That pitch to Hoskins – player development over immediate playing time – is a common one made to all recruits, regardless of star rating, according to Robbie Weinstein, who covers Vanderbilt athletics for 24/7 Sports.
Wenstein said the Commodores do not add transfers at the same pace as rival schools in the Southeastern Conference.
“Vanderbilt does not load up in the transfer portal too much because it is not so easy to get kids in to school. In addition, the Commodores' staff wants to develop high-upside high school recruits who will spend more years on campus than transfers who have already used some eligibility,” Weinstein told The Kerr Report. “In general, Vanderbilt likes to go for toolsy and athletic players who perhaps are raw…they hope that these players can then compete with younger four-and five-star recruits once they are upperclassmen.”
Hoskins possessed the academic grades and athletic tools desired by Vanderbilt coaches.
Before leaving to go back to Middlebury after the January visit, the Commodore coaching staff told Hoskins they felt he could get into the school by applying as a regular student.
A few days after returning to Middlebury, Hoskins began that process.
From there, “it became a waiting game,” Hoskins said.
Throughout the winter and early spring, he made sure to keep an open line of communication with Middlebury coaches on his transfer status. Other than family members and a few select friends, Hoskins kept a tight lid on the transfer process.
But as the months dragged on and he hadn’t heard from Vanderbilt about his application, the anxiety escalated. What if he didn’t accepted by Vanderbilt? Would Middlebury take him back? Or was there another school he could add to the mix?
“I can almost say, it was kind of like Vanderbilt or bust for me. I was confident in what I wanted to do. However, I was still like, ‘man, I need to know,’” Hoskins said. “I was juggling the other side of things with Middlebury and that honestly was the hardest part, having to tell them I was leaving or that I’m not sure I’m leaving. I wanted to keep the door open (with Middlebury) and not have any bad blood between us.
“There were sleepless nights. Like, what am I going to do? What do I want to do? What do I really want? What's good for me? Like these are things that were just going through my head every single day. I would say that the month of November (2021) through April of this year were some of the most mentally exhausting, emotionally exhausting months of my entire by far.”
Finally, in early May, the waiting game concluded.
He got the call he’d been accepted as a student and needed to report to campus in early June to begin the next phase of his academic and football life.
Hoskins would officially become an SEC football player, living out a childhood fantasy that seemed unattainable a year ago.
“My family, we’re huge LSU fans and all I’ve ever wanted to do since I was a little kid was play in the SEC,” Hoskins said. “But to also be at one of the best academic schools in the country, I don’t think I could have done any better. If you asked me two years ago if I thought I’d be in this position, I would have said ‘hell no.’
“I don’t think I could have done any better.”
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