Isaiah Haggerty joined the growing list of local names with NCAA Division I scholarship opportunities Sunday.

Howard University, an FCS competitor, is the first Division I program to take an interest in the rising senior receiver from Tyler Bishop Gorman. Haggerty announced the development through his personal Twitter account.

Gorman had one of the region's most explosive offenses a season ago under former head coach Coby Gipson, who is now an assistant coach at Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas.

Haggerty (6-2, 170) caught a team third-best 419 yards on 26 receptions and scored twice in an 11-game season. SMU signee Judah Bell and fellow receiver Tyler Hobbs ate into Haggerty's numbers with 2,015 and 960 yards, respectively.

Hobbs and Haggerty will join forces once again with record-setting quarterback Jake Smith this season under new Gorman head coach Randy McFarlin.

Howard, a competitor in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, posted a 2-9 record last season. Both wins came in conference play.

While Howard has not flourished in a football sense recently, it is an elite academic institution located in Washington, D.C. The university is widely regarded as one of the best historically black colleges and universities in the country, and it is consistently ranked as a top university nationally for its all-encompassing programs.

Alumni include Nobel-Prize winning author Toni Morrison, U.S. Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall and many politicians both domestically and abroad.

Renowned sports broadcaster Gus Johnson calls Howard home as well.

The football program, which played its first game in 1893, has sent more than 20 players to the professional ranks.

Howard and the rest of the MEAC abstain from the FCS playoffs after the end of the regular season. Instead, the MEAC champion faces the winner of the Southwestern Athletic Conference in the Celebration Bowl for the historically black colleges and universities’ unofficial national championship.

The Bison program claims five such titles.

Haggerty, like all rising seniors with Division I options, will become eligible to sign with any school that offers him in December.

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