Looking for work
Lobo football player Garrett Hughes figures he is on a job interview this season
Like most of his University of New Mexico teammates, and like most college football players around the country, Garrett Hughes aspires to play the game beyond his senior year.
Well ... OK. Hughes doesn’t just aspire to play in the National Football League. He’s planning on it.
“I’m gonna make a lot of money (playing football) someday,” he said earlier this week at the Mountain West Conference football media gathering in Las Vegas, Nev.
Of his college career, he said, “It’s a
job opportunity” — a chance to show NFL talent evaluators what he can do.
Lest anyone think Hughes has put the NFL cart ahead of the UNM horse, relax. He doesn’t.
Of his short-term individual goals, he said, “Just keep my body healthy and keep my mind focused on that common goal, for the team. We want to win games, and to win games you’ve got to do everything.
“Every little step, every little extra thing that it takes to accomplish your goal. I feel like we’re on that path already, so the only thing to do is continue.”
Hughes’ chances for a post-college football career are better than most. A fast, explosive defensive end, Hughes last year was a second-team All-Mountain West selection. He was a firstteam pick in the preseason media poll announced Tuesday. He led the Lobos in quarterback sacks last season with
6½. This year, he said, “twelve sacks would be amazing.”
To make an NFL roster a year from now, though, Hughes would have to, in essence, squeeze his 6-foot-2, 264-pound frame through the eye of a needle. NFL roster spots are that hard to come by.
To snag one of those in 2018, he and Lobos coach Bob Davie are in agreement about what’s job one.
Stay in your gap, Garrett.
“I think I need to prove than I can run through a guy that’s 300-plus pounds,” Hughes said. “That I can hold my gap down, be gap-sound and do my job. Everything else will fall into place.”
The key, Davie said, is consistency. “He needs to be consistent and he needs to stay in his gap, as simple as that sounds.
“He’ll be in his gap and he thinks that the play is going (in another direction) . ... He jumps there, and the ball comes back in his gap.”
Boundless energy, Davie said — other than pure physical ability — is Hughes’ greatest strength as a player. Sometimes, though, “it’s his biggest weakness.”
Hughes’ level of animation on the field has backfired at times, notably last fall at Utah State, where the Lobos prevailed 24-21 despite two 15-yard penalties stepped off because of late hits by No. 95.
But Davie also credited Hughes’ enthusiasm in the locker room with keeping his teammates loose and ready to play after a two-hour lightning delay the week before against Nevada. The Lobos won, 35-26.
“He’s just high energy, high energy, high energy,” Davie said. “The good thing about Garrett is he’s smart enough and he’s a good enough kid, whether it’s in football or everyday life, that he’s coachable and he admits it when he makes a mistake.”
Coming to New Mexico, Hughes said, was no mistake. A 2013 high graduate, Hughes originally committed to California, hoping to stay in his home state and play in the Pac-12. After failing to qualify at Cal, he shored up his academics and enrolled at UNM in the summer of 2014.
“Honestly, the way I look at it, it was a blessing,” he said. “... I feel we (the classes of 2013-14) came to New Mexico and changed the culture here. We hadn’t necessarily won here in a long time, and now we’ve had two bowl seasons. “That feels amazing to be able to accomplish that.”
FAMILY TIES: Hughes’ father, Glen, drove some 3½ hours from his home in Chino Hills, Calif., to spend time with his son at the media gathering in Las Vegas.
“He’s always supported me in everything I’ve done,” Garrett Hughes said. “My number one fan, for sure.”
CENTENNIAL TWINS: Well, not exactly. Hughes and senior quarterback Lamar Jordan, the Lobos’ other player representative in Vegas, both played at Centennial High School before coming to UNM. But Hughes’ Centennial is in Corona, Calif., Jordan’s in Frisco, Texas.