On the Plains with Horatio Fields: 'Get your popcorn ready'

It’s a common refrain for a lot of college football players.
    
“My mom didn’t want me to play football.”
    
Such was the case for Auburn senior wide receiver Horatio Fields when he was an 8-year-old in Douglasville, Georgia.
    
But unlike most kids his age, Horatio took matters into his own hands.
    
“I signed myself up for football,” Fields said. “One day we were riding around and I saw a youth football team practicing. I said, ‘Mom, can we please just look at it?’ Next thing you know, I signed up and I’m already practicing. She went looking for me, and I was out there with an 8U team. They were all in pads, I didn’t have any yet, but I was still out there.”
    
That initiative sparked a stellar high school career that led to four seasons at Wake Forest, and now a spot in Auburn’s highly-touted wide receiver room for the 2025 season.
    
Fields signed with Wake as a three-star prospect from New Manchester High School, where he was a first-team All-State selection and the Douglas County player of the year. He helped his school win its first region championship in history, and he is the school’s all-time leader in receptions, receiving yards and touchdowns.
    
“We were a group of guys who worked together, stayed loyal and achieved things,” Fields said of his high school team. “Our senior year, we saw what the work we put in would do. I was part of putting New Man on the map.”

Despite Douglasville’s proximity to the Plains – just a little over 100 miles away – Auburn did not recruit Fields out of high school. In fact, before his official visit last December, he had been to Auburn’s campus only once – for a camp his sophomore year of high school.
    
Fields’ senior year coming during the 2020-21 school year, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, did not help matters.
    
“Because of COVID, I didn’t get too much exposure,” he said. “There were a lot of guys that committed early (during the summer of 2020) because they didn’t know if they were going to have a season. So I committed to Murray State early because I didn’t know if we’d have a season.
    
“Wake Forest told me if someone decommitted, I was the next guy up. So I waited to sign, Wake Forest called, someone had decommitted and they gave me an offer.”

His playing time started to increase as a junior in 2023. Then last season, Fields pulled in 39 receptions for 463 yards and four touchdowns, finishing second on the team in catches and yards and leading the Demon Deacons in receiving touchdowns.
    
So why Auburn?
    
“I felt like my time had come,” Fields said. “I learned as much as I could, I just felt like it was time to grow, so I trusted myself and hopped in the portal. 
    
“Auburn was the best fit for me trying to achieve all the goals I’ve set for myself.”

Fields said that Auburn’s coaching staff and its emphasis on off-the-field development played a big role in landing his commitment to the Tigers.
    
“Coach Freeze, he talked a lot to me and my mother about being a man, growing and learning,” Fields said. “From him, I felt like I could take a lot of things he’s teaching and apply it to myself, both on and off the field.”

Already a college graduate with a degree in communications from Wake Forest, Fields is approaching his final season of college football with excitement for what a gameday on the Plains will be. 
    
And he’s had to take the word of his teammates, because he’ll be playing in the first game he ever sees at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
    
“I can’t even tell you what I’m looking forward to,” Fields said. “I’m just excited to see what it’s all about with the fans. What the guys tell me about how it is, I’ve just to got experience it for myself, and I’m so excited to see how Jordan-Hare gets when we come out of that tunnel with the fans roaring.
    
“(My teammates) said it’s a one-of-one experience. You can’t replicate it. But the guys, they tell me how exciting it is, how you get the chills, excitement through the roof. That’s what I need.”
    
As part of a position group with high expectations, Fields is ready to show that he can be a major part of the Tigers’ offense for the 2025 season.
    
“I just want the fans to know that I’m going to put on a show,” he said. “Get your popcorn ready. Bring the energy because I’m going to match it. War Eagle!”