Head coach Corey Mace commended Hughes’ playmaking, versatility and communication<\/p>\n
It was a different kind of pick generating plenty of discussion Friday as the Saskatchewan Roughriders wrapped up rookie camp in Saskatoon.<\/p>\n
Newcomer defensive back\u00a0JuJu Hughes was noticed not just for his on-field performance but for doing so with a toothpick in his mouth throughout practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cOriginally it was to help me stop biting my nails. It worked for like two weeks,\u201d the 27-year-old told reporters with a laugh. \u201cStill bite my nails to this day. But kinda just became my thing. People got used to me having it. Been doing it since I was a sophomore in high school so it\u2019s been a little while now.\u201d<\/p>\n
A veteran of 26 regular season games over three National Football League seasons (2020-22) with the Los Angeles Rams and Detroit Lions, Hughes signed with the Riders in March and turned heads this week with his play as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s made a bunch of plays all over the field. Every day he\u2019s pretty much touched the ball and then you parlay that with the film of which you know what he looks like with pads on in games and you get excited for those kind of things,\u201d head coach Corey Mace told media after practice.<\/p>\n
For his NFL career, Hughes registered 26 tackles, two tackles for a loss and one sack. In 2023 he attended Arizona Cardinals training camp before spending time with the United Football League\u2019s Birmingham Stallions in 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been excellent in communication since the first day of practice, conducting from different positions where naturally you don\u2019t expect communication to come from,\u201d Mace continued. \u201cHe\u2019s not going to bite his tongue just to get everybody on the same page. You love that. You love to see that.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s played a couple for us, a couple different positions. I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll try him at more to see what\u2019s most comfortable for him but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a playbook thing that\u2019s going to overload the kid too much. He seems to be picking it up pretty fast.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hughes learned just how fast he had to be on the first day of practice, adjusting to the larger size of the Canadian football field.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust looking at it you don\u2019t really notice it. It\u2019s when you start running sideline to sideline, getting to that ball, long throw from one hash to the other sideline, that\u2019s when you kind of get that feeling,\u201d he said. \u201cFirst day your legs gonna feel it. You\u2019re running around out there, it\u2019s not normal. Those extra 13 yards or whatever it is wide (compared to an American football field), they all add up and you feel it a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he said part of his quick adjustment to the Canadian game also came from having former teammates in the Roughriders\u2019 fold \u2013 players like Antoine Brooks Jr., Jerry Jacobs, KeeSean Johnson and even linebackers coach Travis Brown, who was on the Fresno State Bulldogs\u2019 staff during Hughes\u2019 time playing collegiate ball there.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe asked how I could get so comfortable and adapt so quick. It\u2019s easier when you got some familiar faces to talk you through it and what to expect and things like that,\u201d said Hughes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Head coach Corey Mace commended Hughes’ playmaking, versatility and communication It was a different kind of pick generating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,243365,82],"class_list":["post-657489","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-nflcflroughriders","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657489","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=657489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}