The beginnings of a football career can offer humor when looking back.

Here's Andre Hunt, about to graduate high school on Thursday and arrive to Lincoln May 30 at 10 a.m. (Yes, he knows when the airplane touches down without even looking it up). Here's a wide receiver who would become good enough to once be committed to USC, and become the type of player Scott Frost's staff wanted, picking Nebraska despite an 11th-hour offer from Oregon.

Here's a kid who started playing football on ... the O-line? Well, yeah. He was just 6 or 7. No one ever knows for sure where a kid is going to end up at this point.

Pretty good in the trenches? "I don't think so," he'll honestly tell you. Just big enough to play it at that age, but pretty weak at it. Get this man running some routes.

He'd play some running back after that, but it wasn't until his freshman year of high school that he'd focus on the craft of being a receiver.

"Freshman year, I wasn't really pushing to be the best," Hunt remembered. "Then sophomore year, I went to a different school and they saw something in me."

Coaches from major college programs soon did too. The California kid was headed to USC right up until early national signing day. He'd been committed to the Trojans for six months before the two sides parted company on Dec. 18, late in the recruiting game.

Suddenly on the market was a 6-foot, 175-pound wide receiver who had 1,185 yards and 67 catches in his senior year at Paraclete High School in Lancaster, California. That comes out to 17.7 yards a catch, which he picked up in every way imaginable: catching screens, going deep after running past defensive backs, making people miss, breaking tackles.

But when it comes to giving a scouting report on himself, there is that one all-important asset he highlights: "My speed is very good."

He had to move fast in January.

If it seems a whirlwind move going from being committed to USC in December to signing with Nebraska on the second day of February, it wasn't made without some solid research by Hunt. He watched closely what Scott Frost and Troy Walters had done at Central Florida. "Cool dudes." And that fast-tempo offense?

"I think I'm pretty ready. All my schools that I went to were a high-tempo offense. They never huddled ... The work part of it? I think I'm ready for everything," Hunt said.

He knew even before he visited Lincoln on the weekend just before signing day that picking Nebraska was a likely option for him.

It was game over after the visit. "It was just mind-blowing." Everyone in California kept speaking of the cornfields that would meet him. "I went up there and I was like, 'There's barely cornfields up here. What are they talking about?'"

And as Hunt shared with Husker247 back in February, Nebraska athletic director Bill Moos gets an assist in his recruitment.

“Mr. Moos, he inspired me," Hunt said then. "He spoke with all of us recruits and that’s when I wanted to commit. The athletic director is on board with the staff and the whole program. What he’s accomplished and what he wants to accomplish, really fired me up and made me want to go there."

Offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach Troy Walters seemed to like what Hunt showed not just as a receiver, but as a defender. There was physicality to his game. Maybe thank the 7-year-old O-lineman in him, right?

"We always look for toughness. The last two minutes of his highlights you'll see him as a corner who comes up and hits you," Walters said of Hunt last February. "We want those physical receivers that can run. And once again, he gets the ball in his hands, he's going to make something happen."

By coming to Nebraska, Hunt also liked the idea of perhaps taking away some distractions by coming across the country.

"That's one of the reasons I didn't pick San Diego State or Oregon State, because my friends are there," Hunt said. "I think for me to be the best I can be, I need to be by myself and be focused."

Family helped Hunt stay grounded throughout the recruiting process. He credits his parents and an uncle, Uncle Gee, for giving him advice he'll pack with him on that flight next week.

"Don't worry about the football aspect, worry about the school aspect, because the football is going to come," his Uncle Gee has told him.

Hunt takes it to heart, saying his first goal is to start out strong in the classroom.

But he wants to chase something pretty big on the field too. That is picked up on quickly when he said, "I want to be a freshman All-American. And every year I want to win a championship. That's not just about me. That's about the whole team in general."

Hunt watched the Husker spring game from his home in California. He loved the fans and he loved the offense. "I've got to learn it some more."

When he's talked to Husker wide receivers coach Troy Walters, the message always includes the words: Just be ready to work.

"They need receivers," Hunt said, "so they need me to be ready to work and come in and contribute in a big way."