With Mike Hass, Mike Riley and Dennis Erickson on Hass’ selection for the College Football Hall of Fame

Mike Hass during his Oregon State career

Mike Hass never really made it in the NFL, but the former Oregon State great is getting a very nice consolation prize.

Hass was one of 18 players, along with three coaches, named Tuesday as part of the 2022 induction class into the College Football Hall of Fame.

“I’m honored, and a little bit surprised,” says Hass, 39, from his home in Sherwood, where he lives with wife Rebecca and their two children, Logan, 4 and Gwyneth, 2. “I saw a list of the nominees — there were some pretty big name recognition there. There are a lot of adjectives I could throw out there. … I’m excited, for sure.”

Hass will be inducted December 6 at a site yet to be determined alongside such names as Andrew Luck (quarterback, Stanford), Champ Bailey (defensive back, Georgia), Rashaan Salaam (running back, Colorado) and LaVar Arrington (linebacker, Penn State).

Hass played at Oregon State from 2001-05, claiming the Biletnikoff Trophy as the nation’s outstanding receiver his senior year. The Jesuit High grad holds many school receiving records, including career yardage (3,924), career 100-yard games (19), single-season 100-yard games (nine), single-game receptions (14, tied with Brandin Cooks and Isaiah Hodgins) and single-game yardage (293). Hass ranks fourth in career receptions (220) and is tied for second in career touchdowns (20).

Not bad for a walk-on who received zero college scholarship offers.

“The best downfield receiver I ever coached (in college),” says Mike Riley, a head coach for 17 years of college ball, including Hass’ final three seasons at OSU. “He had a big body, great hands and anticipation. He’d go up with a guy on his back and go out and get the ball. It was absolutely amazing. He was special.”

Hass received word of his Hall of Fame selection via a call from Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes while on a belated honeymoon trip to Jamaica with his wife of 5 1/2 years, Rebecca.

Mike Hass with wife Rebecca and their kids, Gwyneth, 2, and Logan, 4 (already decked out in Beaver football gear)

“We had originally scheduled it shortly after our wedding, but she got pregnant,” Hass says. “We rescheduled it; she got pregnant again. Then COVID hit. We finally got around to doing it this year when I got the call from Scott. I was sitting in a chair looking out at the Caribbean after dinner — an interesting place to receive that kind of news.”

As a 6-foot, 180-pound senior, Hass was a two-way star at Jesuit. He caught 79 passes for 1,739 yards and 21 touchdowns — averaging 22 yards a catch — and was named state 4A Player of the Year in leading the Crusaders to the state championship. He also had 10 interceptions as a strong safety. Even so, he received little interest from Division I college scouts.

Hass made officials visits to Portland State, Montana and Utah State after his senior season at Jesuit.

“I sat down with coaches, hoping for an offer,” he says. “It was always, ‘Come walk on.’ I was frustrated, but looking back on it now, it was the best thing that could happened to me.”

Hass decided to walk on at either Oregon or Oregon State. He visited both schools after his senior season in 2001. First was Oregon, where he attended a basketball game and met with receivers coach Dan Ferrigno.

“He was a nice guy,” Hass says. “Don’t remember talking to (head coach Mike) Bellotti, but I have nothing bad to say about (the visit). Nice coaching staff, good people.”

Later, Hass went to Oregon State’s spring game. He met with offensive line coach Gregg Smith, who was in charge of recruiting the state. He spent time in the office of Dennis Erickson, talking with the Beavers’ head coach.

Both schools offered Hass to walk on.

“I had an interest in engineering as my major, so I decided OSU was the place to go,” Hass says. “And it seemed like (the Beavers) wanted me a little more than Oregon.”

Two decades later, Erickson’s mind is cloudy on why the state’s Offensive Player of the Year didn’t merit a scholarship offer.

“It’s hard to remember that far back,” Erickson says from his home in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. “He probably didn’t have the measurements that schools were looking for. Sometimes it becomes a matter of numbers. And we went the JC route quite a bit at Oregon State.”

Erickson brought in two freshman scholarship receivers — Jayson Boyd and Travis Brown — in the recruiting class of 2001, then added junior college-transfers Deondre Alexander and Cory Williams for the 2002 season. Boyd and Brown (along with Hass) redshirted in 2001. In 2002, Boyd had 10 receptions and Alexander four. They never caught another pass in an OSU uniform. By the start of the 2004 season, all four had left the program.

Hass, meanwhile, was working to earn a roster spot and a scholarship before his redshirt freshman season. He made a connection with receivers coach Eric Yarber, now with the Los Angeles Rams.

“I had a really good (training) camp,” he says. “He helped me a lot, helped me not becoming a better receiver but also with confidence.

‘I remember in one practice, I ran a route a little short. He asked me why. I told him something like, ‘I didn’t know if I was fast enough to get there.’ He said, ‘You have plenty of speed. Believe in yourself.’ He taught me a few tricks of the trade.”

Hass impressed Erickson’s coaching staff enough to earn a spot on special teams in 2002. But Hass, listed as the fourth-string split end, played only one play from scrimmage all season.

“After we had him for a year, it was obvious he could fit in somewhere for us (as a receiver),” Erickson says.

“We knew he was eventually going to be good. He had the talent. But we had some pretty good talent that year.”

Hass seemed headed for solid playing time as a receiver and a scholarship as a sophomore in 2003. Then Erickson left for the San Francisco 49ers and Riley began his second tour of duty as OSU’s head coach.

“That was rough,” Hass says. “I was back to being a nobody. I’d built up a rapport with the previous coaching staff. When Coach Erickson left, I had to start over.”

During his first spring under Riley, Hass failed to impress.

“I didn’t get much of an opportunity to do anything,” he says. “When I did, I tried to do too much. It was a brutal spring for me.”

“Mike’s play was nondescript,” Riley says from his home in Corvallis. “There was nothing that said he should be up in the depth chart. There was another receiver (named Arcadias St. Laurent), and I could never tell them apart. I didn’t call them by name for the longest time.”

Dejected, Hass considered not returning to Oregon State that summer. He sought advice from his father, Rick, during a spring salmon fishing outing on the Willamette River.

“It’s not working out as I’d planned,” Hass told his dad. “Should I play somewhere else, or give it up?’

“You can’t just quit,” the senior Hass said. “Give it one more year. Go down there to summer school, work out, show what you’ve got. You have nothing to lose.”

That summer, in an interview for the 2003 press guide, Riley mentioned seven receivers: James Newson, Kenny Farley and Boyd as probable starters, and Brown, Josh Hawkins, George Gillett and Cole Clasen as backups. Hass was listed as a third-string split end behind Newson and Hawkins. The only line on him in the guide’s split end section: “Hass is an excellent possession receiver.”

Hass worked hard that summer and was ready to compete when the Beavers reconvened in August. Newson was the No. 1 split end, but Hass, now 6-1 and 210, soon moved into the second-string slot behind him.

“All of a sudden Mike is standing out,” Riley says. “The guy is making all the plays that James makes. Somewhere along the way, I said to (offensive coordinator) Paul Chryst, ‘Let’s move this guy to flanker and see if he can win that job.’ ”

Newson missed the opener against Sacramento State due to injury. Hass — already given a scholarship by Riley — started in Newson’s place, catching six passes for 129 yards and a touchdown in a 40-7 rout of the Hornets. The next week, Hass moved to flanker, initially to split time with Gillett. Late in the season, Hass emerged. In a 43-3 stomping of Stanford, he caught eight passes for 225 yards and two TDs. Two weeks later, in a 52-28 loss at No. 2-ranked USC, Hass hauled in eight passes for 208 yards. He wound up with 44 receptions for 1,013 yards and seven TDs, averaging a Pac-10-high 23 yards per catch.

Newson departed after that season, and Hass was the No. 1 split end his final two seasons — the first with Derek Anderson at quarterback, the last with Matt Moore. As a junior, Hass caught 86 passes for 1,379 yards and seven touchdowns on a 7-5 team that beat Notre Dame 38-21 in the Insight Bowl.  As a senior, he grabbed 90 passes for 1,532 yards and six touchdowns on a 5-6 team that didn’t make a bowl game.

“Mike was so much fun to coach,” Riley says. “He had good speed, but the thing he really had was a great first step after catching the ball. He could run a hook or hitch route and then he would take off. And he was really strong in his legs. A guy would get an arm tackle on him and he couldn’t bring him down. He was great after the catch and made a lot of plays.”

Riley particularly remembers Hass’ junior season, his final season with Anderson.

“They had such great chemistry,” Riley says. “Derek could really throw the ball downfield. Nobody could throw the post and corner routes like Derek. By their last year together, I don’t care if it was third-and-15, we had something those guys could hook up on.”

Before the Beavers’ 50-21 thrashing of Oregon in 2004 — in which Hass had nine receptions for 154 yards and two score — Riley put in a pass play to Hass called the “sword” route.

“It was an adjustment pattern,” Riley says. “Mike and Derek would see the coverage, know what the Ducks were going to do, and they made the play. If Mike was singled up, we’d read the front side and come to the back side. He caught about six of those in that game.”

Hass had three receivers coaches at OSU — Yarber under Erickson, then Delvaughn Alexander for two years and Lee Hull for one year under Riley.

“Each one had different strengths and knowledge that I benefitted from,” Hass says. “(Alexander) was the first to mention to me during my junior year that, ‘If you work hard enough, you could make a living in the NFL.’ That hadn’t crossed my mind before that.”

I figured Hass would have a solid NFL career. I never saw a college receiver better at going up in a crowd of defenders and coming down with the ball. And he knew what to do with it after the catch, as evidenced by his remarkable 17.8-yard average per reception. He didn’t have great size or speed, but he wasn’t small or slow, and the intangibles were off the charts. He was a competitor and a winner.

Alas, it wasn’t to happen. New Orleans chose him in the sixth round of the 2006 draft. He bounced around for five seasons, from the Saints to the Chicago Bears to the Seattle Seahawks. He suited up and saw some playing time on special teams in his last two stops, but never saw a down at receiver in a regular-season contest.

“I had great training camps and preseasons, but never got a chance in regular season,” Hass says. “I had the ability to play in the league. I know that in my heart.”

Hass doesn’t think speed was an issue.

“It seemed like it was all about the big receivers, guys like Terrell Owens and Randy Moss,” he says. “That’s what they were looking for. In today’s game, there are a lot of those slot guys. It’s a different game. If I were playing today, I’d have had a chance to have more success.”

In 2010, Hass spent a season with the Omaha Nighthawks in the United Football League, a professional minor league. Playing with Jeff Garcia at quarterback and Ahman Green and Maurice Clarett at running back, he was the No. 4 receiver with 14 catches for 175 yards on a team that finished 3-5. (The Nighthawks led the league in attendance with a 22,785 average in Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium, where Oregon State had won back-to-back College World Series baseball titles in 2006 and ’07.)

“It was worth it,” Hass says. “It was fun to play one more year of football. I loved the game. I got the most out of it that I could.”

Hass took a year off, then began an eight-year run with Nike, working as a developer of gloves and cleated footwear. In late 2020, he took a job as project manager for Pacific Geosource, which handles pavement needs with cities, cities, counties and departments of transportation. Hass’ territory stretches from the south Bay Area to the Canadian border.

‘I’m back to my engineering roots,” he says. “It’s been a rewarding job and a nice change from what I was doing with Nike.”

I asked Riley who was the better college receiver, Hass or Cooks, the latter whom won the Biletnikoff Trophy in 2013.

“Oh man, I can’t pick one over the other,” Riley says. “They were both great players. Mike played split end and Brandin flanker and they were both perfect for their positions.

“Brandin had the speed and quickness. That was the difference. Those qualities were a cut above anybody else I’ve had. And his last year, Brandin added a ton of strength. He added the best 10 pounds I’ve ever seen on a player. Mike had quickness, too, plus athletic savvy and tremendous skills catching the ball in the air, going up high to beat a defender. His down-the-field skills were unbelievable.”

Hass says he has a lot of people from his time at Oregon State to thank. He mentions Erickson and Riley, “two of the greatest coaches a player could ever have.” He mentions Anderson and Moore, along with current OSU coach Jonathan Smith, the quarterback during Hass’ redshirt season in Corvallis. He is thankful for the training staff there. “I had a few injuries, and they did a great job getting me right,” he says.

“I couldn’t imagine having gone anywhere else to play college football,” Hass says. “If I go down to USC, I don’t get those same opportunities. I got to play at home in front of friends and family. We had a lot of talent and good teams. I developed in college. That’s one thing Oregon State does very well. They don’t just recruit the best and hope they win. They develop players and people. It’s a special place to be.”

Erickson, who was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2019, says he voted for Hass this year.

“It was a no-brainer,” Erickson says. “It’s awesome that he got voted in.”

Both Erickson and Riley say they plan to be at the induction ceremony in December.

“I’m thrilled for Mike,” Riley says. “It’s absolutely deserving. It’s exciting for all of us who got to be around him at Oregon State.”

I’m thrilled, too, for Hass, with whom I had a great working relationship covering Oregon State football during his career. He appeared with me and former Oregon great Josh Wilcox at a book signing event for “Civil War Rivalry: Oregon vs. Oregon State” back in 2015. Hass is a great representative of the state of Oregon, for sure.

Mike Hass (left) with Eggers and ex-Duck tight end Josh Wilcox in 2015

And now, he is a Hall of Famer.

“I got a little emotional when I first heard about,” Hass tells me. “But don’t tell anybody about that.”

Don’t worry, Mike. It’s our secret.

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