Bullard’s Mikah Hughes Receives Offer From Yale

Ivy League offers don't elevate high school prospects into the national spotlight, but something certainly needs to be said about having a superior classroom work ethic to go along with on-the-field success.

Bullard safety and outside linebacker Mikah Hughes reported Friday a standing invitation from Yale to join its football program after graduation. He is the first senior East Texas football player to have an opportunity with one of the nation's most revered academic institutions.

It's Hughes' (6-1, 197) fifth college football opportunity. Yale joins fellow FCS competitors Houston Baptist, Bucknell and Liberty as well as Northeastern Oklahoma State from NCAA Division II ranks in the pursuit.

Yale was the collegiate home to three United States presidents, including two with deep connections to Texas. They are William Howard Taft, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.

All three presidents dabbled in sports at the university. George H. W. Bush served as a captain of the school's baseball team, George W. Bush played rugby and Taft was an intramural wrestling champion in the 1870s.

The Yale football team, nicknamed the Bulldogs, claims 27 national championships and 14 Ivy League titles. However, the program has steadily deemphasized its national standing, and its league abstains from the FCS playoffs after the teams complete a 10-game regular season.

Yale does stay in the football limelight with its annual game against Harvard, known as "The Game." ESPN's College Gameday TV program featured the rivalry meeting last season and the ESPN family of networks aired the game nationally.

Bulldogs head coach Tony Reno is entering his fourth season in New Haven, CT, and owns a 15-15 record.

Yale, one of the oldest programs in football history, is 884-362-55 through 142 years of competition. It only trails Michigan in terms of total wins across the collegiate landscape.

New Haven has been home to 100 consensus All-Americans, 28 College Football Hall of Fame inductees headlined by Walter Camp and two Heisman Trophy winners in Larry Kelly and Clint Frank.

Hughes was one of 113 invite-only participants at the third annual ETSN.fm + APEC Football Recruiting Combine on May 10 in Tyler.

Competing with the linebackers, he put up 14 reps of 205 pounds in the bench press event. That placed him in a four-way tie for ninth place among linebackers and running backs at the combine.

Hughes will become eligible to sign with any program that wants him on Feb. 3.