Dec. 14, 2007
SAN DIEGO - San Diego State punter Michael Hughes has been named an honorable mention All-American by College Football News. This marks the second time in his career the senior has earned All-America recognition from the publication. Hughes garnered honorable mention accolades from the same publication in 2005 as a sophomore.
Hughes ended the regular season ranked 11th nationally and second in the Mountain West Conference in punting average (44.2). The Moreno Valley, Calif., native earned MWC special teams player-of-the-week honors twice in 2007, following the game at Air Force when he tied the school record with a 54.8 punt average, and after the Wyoming contest when he had 10 punts for 481 yards, including three of 50 or more yards and a season-long 75 yarder. A two-time nominee for the Ray Guy Award, Hughes finished his Aztec career ranked second in attempts (231) and yardage (9,807) and fifth in average (42.0).
Hughes becomes just the 13th Aztec to earn All-America honors on more than one occasion in school history and is the first since Kirk Morrison in 2003 and 2004. Marshall Faulk was a three-time All-American, while Doug Aronson, Darius Durham, Chris Hardy, Paul Hewitt, Pete Inge, Ricky Parker, Todd Santos, Brian Sipe, Kyle Turley, Kevin Wells and the aforementioned Morrison were two-time recipients.
To date, Hughes has been named to the all-MWC second team and to Phil Steele's all-conference third team.