This could be a tale of the short shrift, hard luck and a confluence of events spoiling the college career of a young student-athlete.
Instead it's the story of opportunity knocking and a young man not only embracing a challenge but carving out a role for himself despite what even an optimist would call long odds.
As Governors Sports Network football analyst Van Stokes might say, it takes a special young man to transition from playing defensive back to being a top-shelf punter. And that's exactly what Devin Stuart is.
(A top-shelf punter. And a special young man. He's both. I know Van will read this, because he reads everything, and he'll ask questions about it, because he's inquisitive. I won't leave things to chance.)
Betting on himself has paid sweeping dividends. On-the-job training may not have looked like much his first season back deep, but last year he set the program-record with 41.48 yards per punt and he's poised to either eclipse that record or come darn close again in 2018, averaging 41.7 yards per kick through eight games. It's emblematic of how far he's come, and how dedicated he's been to becoming the best at whatever he set his mind to being the best at.
Stuart arrived at Austin Peay when things were at a pretty low point—mired in years of losing, morale low, hope fading, by 2015 even some of the shine had worn off the upgrades put to then-Governors Stadium. He also had the misfortune of playing the one position—defensive back—in which the Governors had managed to carve out a passable unit.
And so he took a redshirt in 2015. And then the previous coaching staff was relieved of its duties and whatever role Stuart hoped to carve out for himself under the previous administration was scrapped and he had to impress a whole new coaching staff.
A few things it's important to note about Stuart here: he's a natural athlete, able to excel at multiple sports in high school and on both sides of the ball at receiver and cornerback at Dobyns Bennett High School. He also lacks nothing in the way of self-confidence, convinced he could become the starting center if it was necessary (and if he added the proper amount of weight).
Also noteworthy: the now-standout collegiate punter had never been a full-time punter before fate arrived at his doorstep three springs ago. The Govs no longer had a punter, at all, anywhere on the roster. Someone needed to fill the role.
It turned out that someone was the confident-if-undersized-defensive back who had spent the previous fall trying to defend bigger receivers as he navigated his redshirt year.
"One day, Coach (Will) Healy and Coach (Maxwell) Thurmond asked anybody who was able to punt the ball, to stick around after practice and try out," Stuart said. "I hit two punts, over Coach Thurmond's head, both turn-over balls. I knew I wasn't going to be playing corner anymore by fall camp; I was a fifth-string defensive back. I had to make a choice and it was an easy one."
Stuart won the job, but the work was hardly done there. While Stuart's athletic gifts afforded him a certain latitude that kept opponents on their toes and accounting for him at every turn—from his 21-yard fake punt scamper in the 2017 regular-season finale against Eastern Illinois to myriad tackles ("[The returners] don't expect me to want to hit," he said. "It's one of those things you learn when you're little if you play defense: if you hit them first, it's not gonna hurt as bad.")—he still had much to learn in terms of technique.
Fortunately for the Govs, he's a quick study.
"At first, it was all natural but I had to learn the small things of the technique—the drop, pointing my toe, leg extension, coming off the ground with my plant foot," he said. "Those things continually improve and enhance your confidence."
I ask about rugby-style punting, something Stuart deploys to devastating, field-flipping effect, seemingly each Saturday. Did he already have that in his arsenal?
He laughs.
"They asked if I could do it," he said, the assuredness shining through once more. "Where my confidence was, I said I could because of my soccer background; I figured if I could kick a soccer ball, I could kick a football and it worked out the way I believed it would."
Belief. We could all use a little more of it in our lives. Devin Stuart believed he could will himself into being a quality Division I punter, and he did just that. He and his teammates believed in themselves—that they could turn around a program that had been dormant or worse for the better part of its history. And they did just that.
Belief can be a powerful thing.
"It's more than what I expected," Stuart said. "It's been a rollercoaster. There was a time where we felt like people didn't really want us here. Once you get through it, you feel like you can get through anything.
"You can't think about the last thing, you've got to focus on the next thing."
