FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -The transformation of Jerry Hughes from prep running back to standout defensive end at TCU was never more evident than in the photograph of a skinny kid someone taped to his locker.
It was a recruiting picture of Hughes, then a 210-pound high school player who still envisioned himself being a ball carrier instead of a quarterback chaser. Next to that was one of the many rankings that lists Hughes as of the top defensive prospects going into the next NFL draft.
“They put an arrow and said, `Really, this guy? This puny little guy,”’ cornerback Rafael Priest said, laughing while recalling the image.
“Somebody wanted to be a comedian. It was just funny seeing myself being that small,” Hughes said. “I looked like I was an eighth-grader.”
Now the muscular 6-foot-3 Hughes is about 50 pounds heavier – in all the right places – and among the most fierce pass rushers in college football. He led the nation with 15 sacks last year, his first as a full-time starter.
er tricks to try to stop him – Hughes already has six sacks and 26 tackles in his senior season for the 10th-ranked Horned Frogs (4-0).
“I don’t think you can measure Jerry Hughes by statistics,” coach Gary Patterson said. “He is bigger, faster and a better football player than a year ago.”
And totally different from the player who arrived at TCU three years ago.
As a high school senior in Sugar Land, near Houston, Hughes was an all-district running back and kick returner. He ran for 1,412 yards and 19 touchdowns and caught three TD passes, and figured he’d do the same in college.
Yet, when Hughes got to TCU, he found a No. 98 jersey hanging in his locker. Patterson, a defensive-minded coach, had other plans.
“Once I started actually being the one that was doing the hitting, actually making the contact, it started to feel a lot better,” Hughes said. “I kind of started to like it more.”
During Hughes’ freshman season, he was one of five former prep running backs on the roster that Patterson had turned into defensive linemen. Among the others was standout defensive end Tommy Blake, then a junior.
“(Coach Patterson) was telling me how successful Blake was and all that,” Hughes said. “Watching him perform and some of the things he was doing, I was like `All right, I can make this move.”’
ger and stronger to become a defensive force. He also had to learn “just simple lingo that some of the defensive coaches use.”
While playing only sparingly as a true freshman, Hughes was working out and eating right with a focus on gaining weight the proper way.
He realized how much he was changing when he went home for the summer after his freshman year.
“Just to see my mom with that surprised look of what happened. She was like you are no longer the baby any more, you’ve turned into this huge human being,” he said. “It was kind of cool just to see the way my body started to transform.”
There was still another season of playing primarily behind ends Blake and Chase Ortiz, who both finished their careers in the top-five at TCU for sacks.
Then after starting only one of his first 23 games, Hughes had his breakthrough season last year. He was a second-team All-American with six forced fumbles. He also had two interceptions, one returned for a touchdown, and recovered fumbles in three consecutive games.
“He’s fast and quick and relentless,” BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall said.
Undeterred by the extra attention paid to him by opposing teams or growing expectations for him, Hughes had a career-high 11 tackles in the opener against Virginia, the first of two ACC teams TCU beat on the road. He had all three of TCU’s sacks in the second game against Texas State.
ng to be on him, he is going to get double-teamed probably every game and it’s like can he be stopped? I don’t know,” said Priest, the cornerback who has started all 43 of his games at TCU.
“I’m very glad that he’s on our team and we don’t have to worry about him,” Frogs quarterback Andy Dalton said.
Hughes, who after the current semester will need only two classes to complete his communications degree, found out last spring from an NFL advisory committee where he might have been drafted had he come out early. Even though he had started only one season, he was told possibly late in the first round or early in the second.
But Hughes never seriously considered leaving. He wanted to fulfill a promise to his parents to finish his degree and wanted a chance to be part of a Mountain West Conference championship – maybe even help TCU finally bust into the Bowl Championship Series.
He still won’t be taking any handoffs from Dalton.
“He’s always shaking his head no, but deep down, he knows,” Hughes said, with a wide grin.
“He says give him the ball and he’ll get 100 yards every game,” Priest said. “He’s back there catching kicks and stuff in practice. We’re like, ‘You play D-end now.”
A move that has benefited TCU and Hughes’ future.
“Absolutely, that’s something I never would have imagined,” Hughes said. “It worked out pretty well.”
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