Syracuse Football: Former 4-star Alabama DL, who just visited, transfers to Missouri

Isaiah Hastings, a former top-55 national prospect in the 2022 class who took an official visit to Syracuse football this past weekend, is staying in the Southeastern Conference.

The 6-foot-4, 290-pound defensive lineman, who was a freshman at SEC powerhouse Alabama, is transferring to fellow SEC school Missouri, according to a post on X from On3 national recruiting expert Hayes Fawcett.

Hastings, who has three years of collegiate eligibility left, said via his X page on December 7 that he would enter the transfer portal.

While it’s a bummer that Hastings isn’t headed to the ‘Cuse, he is moving on to excellent program. In the recently completed 2023 season, Missouri went 11-2 and finished ranked No. 8 in the final Associated Press top-25 poll.

Syracuse football has secured commitments from several defensive linemen this cycle.

Hastings, who is from Toronto, attended the Clearwater Academy International in Clearwater, Fla., before joining the Crimson Tide.

Per Alabama’s athletics department Web site, Hastings played in one game during the 2022 season and didn’t see any action in the 2023 term.

According to recruiting Web sites, Hastings held around 30 scholarship offers during his recruiting process, ultimately choosing the Crimson Tide over Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Oregon.

In national transfer rankings from 247Sports, at the time of this writing, he was rated as three stars, No. 191 overall and No. 19 at defensive lineman.

Within the 2022 class, Hastings was a highly rated, four-star national prospect. In this cycle, both the industry-generated 247Sports Composite and the industry-generated On3 Industry Ranking placed him within the top 225 around the country.

On3 was most bullish on him, ranking Hastings as No. 53 overall, No. 7 at defensive lineman and No. 10 in Florida within the 2022 cycle.

Although Syracuse football coaches didn’t end up prevailing for Hastings, the Orange’s 2024 class does include a handful of talented defensive linemen, consisting of both high school seniors as well as college players who were in the transfer portal.

Among the team’s defensive-lineman pledges in its 2024 cycle are three-star Dion Wilson Jr., a junior from New Mexico State, four-star Michael Nwokocha, a freshman at Tyler Junior College in Tyler, Texas., and three-star high school senior Maraad Watson out of Irvington High School in Irvington, N.J.