For Jay Hughes, the days are different now. And they are the same.
For five years, Hughes toiled daily as part of Mississippi State’s football program. By working, grinding, sweating, Hughes became part of a program renaissance, signing with a Bulldogs’ team that finished 5-7 the year before he arrived then leaving on a 10-3 note with memories of the school’s first Orange Bowl bid in 73 years fresh in his mind.
But now, three months after his final game as a Bulldog, the MSU safety is once again working, grinding, sweating. Though there’s no practice in sight, no game on Saturday to prepare for, no Sportscenter appearances on the horizon, Hughes is back in the weight room and back on the football field, because even though his MSU career has ended, his dream of playing football hasn’t.
Welcome to life on the edges of the NFL Draft.
‘I owe this to myself’
For five years, Hughes followed a very rigid schedule. Wake up, work out, go to class, work out, go to practice, watch film, and then prepare to do it all over again the next day, that was Hughes’ life.
Now, as his collegiate career fades into the background and he comes face-to-face with the opportunity of preparing for a tryout with an NFL team, Hughes is back to that rigid schedule.
“I’m working twice as hard,” said Hughes. “I owe it to myself. I’ve been playing football my whole life. I have been around it, it’s something I’ve always known. I have to see if I can make it.”
Making it, of course, means enjoying a career in the National Football League. And Hughes is just one of more than a dozen former Bulldogs, a group that helped turn MSU into the No. 1 team in the country for five weeks in 2014, trying to do the same thing.
A safety, Hughes finished his MSU career with 70 total tackles, and he started all 13 games during his senior season. He finished his final year with a pair of interceptions, including a pick of Auburn’s Nick Marshall early in the game that vaulted the Bulldogs to becoming the nation’s top-ranked team.
“That was special,” said Hughes.
But now, with the draft barreling down on him, Hughes is hard at awork, training on a daily basis in his hometown of Hattiesburg as he works to secure a future at the next level.
“I’ve been in Hattiesburg, putting the work in,” said Hughes. “I’m really focused right now. With every rep, I’m pushing harder than I’ve ever pushed. I’m not even taking breaks anymore. I’m pushing through everything, trying to give myself this shot.”
A self-aware player, Hughes doesn’t hold illusions that his name will be called early in the NFL Draft, which begins next Thursday in Chicago. Instead, he realistically believes he will get a shot at becoming an undrafted free agent.
“I just want one phone call from a team,” said Hughes. “I probably won’t even watch the draft, I will just keep my phone close by and if a team calls me to tell me they’re interested. We will go from there. I just want one opportunity, want one team to give me that chance.”
Don’t think it can’t happen.
Of the NFL’s 1,800-plus players in 2014, 426 never heard their name called during the draft. That total includes 74 rookies, and historically, 15 eventual hall-of-famers went undrafted.
There’s a precedent in Starkville, too. Since Dan Mullen became MSU’s coach in December of 2008, 18 players have signed rookie free agent deals after going undrafted, and several have had staying power.
Former MSU team captain Cam Lawrence has carved out a career as a backup linebacker and special teams contributor with the Dallas Cowboys. Fellow linebacker Chris White, a 2011 MSU graduate, has done the same thing in Buffalo. Then there’s 2014 graduate Deonte Skinner, a former Noxubee County standout, who signed with the New England Patriots last year. Skinner is currently being fitted for a championship ring after the Patriots won their fourth Super Bowl in 14 years.
‘Give me that shot’
Hughes isn’t alone. While he and teammate Robert Johnson, who had 14 catches for 227 yards and a touchdown as a senior, report daily to Oak Grove High for individual workouts under the watchful eye of a personal trainer, other Bulldogs are repeating the ritual all over the country.
Stars like All-SEC defensive end Preston Smith and linebacker Benardrick McKinney are virtually assured of hearing their names called early – NFL.com projects Smith and McKinney as second-round picks. But that isn’t the reality for a majority of MSU’s draft-eligible players, who are either aiming to land late in the draft or for a chance to earn a post-draft call in free agency, essentially a ticket to attend minicamp and work toward impressing coaches enough to turn that into a payday.
Among MSU’s juniors and seniors eligible, tailback Josh Robinson, linebacker Matt Wells, offensive lineman Ben Beckwith, Smith and McKinney all have been linked to high profile mock drafts and all stand better-than-average chances of being drafted. For other Buldogs, the road map to professional dreams is a little more complicated.
That means plenty of work, for Hughes and others.
Cornerback Jamerson Love and running back Nick Griffin were among a group that worked out in Miami in the days following the Orange Bowl. West Point native Justin Cox, a safety, still works out each day in nearby Aventura, Florida. All in an effort to catch lightning in a bottle, to turn successful careers at MSU into dreams coming true.
For Griffin, the road has been long, and it was never easy.
A promising 4-star prospect out of Perry Central High in New Augusta five years ago, Griffin showed flashes of brilliance during his MSU career, rushing for 592 yards during four injury-plagued seasons. Twice, the 6-foot-2, 226-pound bruiser saw his season cut short due to knee injuries, and both times, he battled back.
Today, the battle continues. Griffin spent much of the offseason training in Miami, and he also attended a region mini-combine for the NFL in Arizona in late March. He’s done it all in an effort to get noticed once more.
For the former Bulldog, the injuries were a road block. But like all obstacles, Griffin believes the injuries can eventually be put in the rearview mirror.
“It was something that happened,” said Griffin. “It’s not going to stop me. I look at everything that’s happened to me as fuel to keep going. I just need one team to like me.”
That’s the goal for Brandon Hill, too.
A local product, Hill played his high school football at West Lowndes High, and when he was given the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Panthers great Keffer McGee at MSU, he took it. Now, months after his five years in Starkville ended, Hill is continuing to pursue his dream.
And he doesn’t even care which position he has to play.
A high school linebacker, Hill played tight end at MSU, excelling as a blocker in MSU’s often run-heavy schemes. He caught three passes as a senior, and nabbed his first career touchdown catch in MSU’s 45-31 win at Kentucky on Oct. 25. But when it came time to work out for NFL scouts and decision-makers, Hill was offered some advice: Switch positions, and his chances to make a team may go up. So he switched. At the USA All-Star Game in Jackson in January, Hill recorded seven tackles as a linebacker, and he worked out there for scouts throughout the rest of the process.
“I’ll play wherever they want me,” said Hill. “I just want to play. Tight end, linebacker, it doesn’t matter to me.”
Hill isn’t the only tight end hoping to make it. Four-year starter Malcolm Johnson is also working out in hopes of getting the call, as are offensive linemen Dillon Day and Blaine Clausell, the two players with the most starts at MSU over the last four seasons.
That experience, and the success it brought to MSU’s program, was by design. So is the next step.
“This is a development program,” said Mullen, who became the first coach in school history to win 10 games in a regular season. “As coaches, we live for the chance to see guys become professional athletes. And they deserve it. With all the work they put in, all the practices, all the workouts, it’s great to sit back and see that work pay off for these guys.”
To that end, MSU held its annual Pro Day on March 18, designed to bring professional scouts and coaches to MSU’s Palmeiro Center in order to get an up close view of the Bulldogs’ prospects.
Several impressed, including Smith and McKinney. But there was also Love, the cornerback from Aberdeen who ran a 4.41 40-yard dash, the day’s fastest time.
“I could have run faster, but I think I had the wrong shoes,” said Love. “I hope I did enough to impress somebody.”
Ultimately, that’s what the process has been about. It’s been the chance for players who served as the backbone for MSU’s rise to national prominence to get noticed by scouts as they try to extend the dream.
By doing so, they’d extend Mullen’s already impressive portfolio of NFL talent, as the seventh-year head coach has put 24 Bulldogs into the league in some form or fashion.
‘I have to know’
Few of these Bulldogs lack for options. Hill was a four-time member of the Southeastern Conference’s All-Academic Team. Griffin earned the same honor three times. And Hughes, the team captain with interests as varied as being a history buff and a natural of the guitar, can go any direction he chooses. The son of MSU safeties coach Tony Hughes, Jay Hughes admits he has given serious thought to attending law school, and he’s weighing offers to join his father’s profession.
But first, he has to chase this football dream as far as he can.
“I just have to know,” said Hughes. “I don’t know if I am going to make it or not. But I do know that I have to try. Who knows where it will take me? Nobody does, but I know I am going to take my shot.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
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