Saskatchewan Roughriders’ rookie kicker Michael Hughes has been working\u00a0to accomplish his pro football goal for a while.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The last ten years.\u00a0I started in eighth grade back home,\u00a0middle school, and\u00a0I wanted to play professional ball. I didn’t know what sport,\u00a0I was playing three sports at the time, moving forward in life, you feel you have a thing for it and you can do it at the next level,” Hughes said. “Then, you get to college,\u00a0you have a great career, and that’s the only thing that you can do is treat it day-by-day. Ever since I’d say probably 10th or 11th grade, I’ve been like, ‘I want to do this for a long time and have a long career.'”<\/p>\n
The other sports Hughes played growing up, besides football, were basketball, baseball, and soccer. Eventually, he made a decision and explained why he chose football as his main focus.<\/p>\n
“The adrenaline, the rush, the team, it was completely different for me, it was a brand new challenge. Every single thing that you do in football culminates in a larger goal, that’s why I say you have to take it day-by-day,” Hughes said.\u00a0“Every time I get there for a rep, it’s the same kick every time, but it’s a different scenario, a different situation every time. You really have to treat it one rep at a time. A lot of guys, they get caught up in,\u00a0‘I missed this kick in the first quarter.’ Well, that kick’s over with, it’s only your next kick, that’s your best ball at hand. I try to treat every rep the same and go attack the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Collegiately, Hughes spent\u00a0four years at Appalachian State University from 2021 to 2024,\u00a0he is the Mountaineers\u00a0all-time leader in field goal percentage at 83.3. Following his NCAA career, Hughes made\u00a0the\u00a0trip north of the border and signed with the Riders on October 7.<\/p>\n
\u201cCrazy four weeks. I was in San Diego training on the West Coast and I’m from the East Coast. I’m in San Diego training,\u00a0I went back home for a day or two, worked out, and kicked a little bit. Then I went down and watched my former college team play.\u00a0Sunday at midday, I got a call from my agent saying, ‘The Riders want to bring you up and work you out. They’re looking to bring a guy in for the rest of the year,'”\u00a0Hughes explained.<\/p>\n
“I told him I was interested. About an hour later,\u00a0I got a call, and we booked a flight on that next Monday morning. I drove four hours North back home, got about three-and-a-half hours\u00a0sleep, got on a plane, and three flights later, I was here the next morning. I woke up, had a workout at 7 a.m., and around 8:30\u00a0to 9 a.m., I was in a team meeting. So a very, very quick turnaround, but that’s the business side of this sport, and that’s what you expect.”<\/p>\n
Besides Hughes, there was another kicker at the tryout. The 22-year-old\u00a0explained he got a text to go see\u00a0Riders’ general manager\u00a0Jeremy O’Day in\u00a0his office to find out\u00a0if he made the team.<\/p>\n
“I went into J.O.’s office\u00a0and he was awesome. He was like, ‘Hey, man, we appreciate you coming all the way up here. We want you to be a part of the team, and we’re going to sign you,'”\u00a0Hughes explained. \u201cI was super excited. I mean, first contract, so it was special.”<\/p>\n
When it comes to learning from veteran kicker Brett Lauther, Hughes knows his\u00a0knowledge is priceless.<\/p>\n
“Him being a 12-year veteran, I’ve leaned on him a lot over the last two or three\u00a0weeks that I’ve been here. Seeing how he moves on a day-to-day basis and also how he treats every single rep. I am my own person, but there are key pieces that I’ve taken from him over the last three weeks that have been super beneficial for me, already being here in Canada, rules changes and the way the game is played. Certain things like that and also,\u00a0‘Hey, the wind’s going to come this way nine times out of ten.’\u00a0Those kinds of things.” Hughes explained. “I’m still my own kicker and I’m going to rely on what I know,\u00a0what I’m capable of doing and trusting myself, but Brett has been super special for me.”<\/p>\n
In the last game for the Riders in the 2025 regular season, Hughes had a\u00a0chance to start against the B.C. Lions because Lauther was out with a back injury. He finished the game making two field goals, and two extra points.\u00a0Also, he kicked off three times\u00a0which totalled 228 yards —\u00a0one went 90 yards for a rouge.<\/p>\n
“It’s one of those things,\u00a0they ended up taking a penalty on the extra point there, so we got the ball spotted a little bit up and we said, ‘Hey, drive it, kid.’ He’s got one of those big legs and he ripped her,” head coach Corey Mace<\/a> said about Hughes’ rogue on the 620 CKRM Rider\u00a0Broadcast Network.\u00a0“So we ended up getting a single off\u00a0that. It was excellent to see. Really happy the kid got an opportunity to go out there and swing it.”<\/p>\n Saskatchewan hosts the West Final at Mosaic Stadium\u00a0on Saturday against the B.C. Lions. Teagan Witko, Justin Dunk and Wes Cates\u00a0bring you the pre-game show at 2:30 p.m. Dave Thomas and Luc Mullinder have the game call at 5:30 p.m. Listen or watch\u00a0our extensive coverage on the\u00a0620 CKRM Co-operators Rider Broadcast Network.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saskatchewan Roughriders’ rookie kicker Michael Hughes has been working\u00a0to accomplish his pro football goal for a while.\u00a0 “The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,120861,82],"class_list":["post-260769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-saskatchewan-roughridersmichael-hughescorey-macebrett-lauthercfl-2025","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}