Hughes takes first official

Rivals250 linebacker Travis Hughes took the first of five official visits this past weekend. The 6-foot-1, 228-pounder started the trips with the school he is most familiar with, Maryland where his brother plays.

"It went pretty well," he said. "I made my first official visit. It was definitely very different being on an official; you spend a lot of time with the players and stuff like that. I got a lot of insight on Maryland and wrote down a lot of things with the team and pregame stuff."

Of course, Hughes was hosted by his brother Trenton.

"For my brother to be my host, I guess Maryland lucked out," he said. "It felt kind of comfortable and I had fun. It was not my first time staying with him, it was different, but everybody was extra nice.

"I didn't just talk to him. I talked to a lot of freshmen there. Their linebackers are really cool and I talked to Titus Till."

Hughes arrived on campus on Saturday and attended the 62-3 victory over Morgan State.

"They had an awesome game on Saturday," he said. "Before the game, I went to see their walk-through and sat down with the linebackers coach. We talked about 45 minutes drawing up what they had in mind for Morgan State.

"The game was a good game. Maryland took care of business and did what they have to. They put 62-points on the board and they have a special group of linebackers. They are short at my position and told me they wanted two linebackers in this class. I like their stunts and the linebackers have pop."

Off the field, Hughes saw one thing he had never seen before and was the highlight of his trip.

"I went to see their crime lab since I'm interested in criminal justice," he said. "That is sweet. It's CSI type of stuff and that was my first time there. I liked that the most out of the trip for real."

Before heading out earlier today, Hughes had one more sit down with head coach Ralph Friedgen.

"Friedgen is who he is, I love him," he said. "He does not change. I feel like that's the man I look at and he's facing a lot of adversity right now, but I give him so much credit the way he is going about everything. He's got a lot of support there and they are riding his back hard. He was serious to me about his future and the present state, where I can come in and the fact they are short on linebackers, they lost three, two transfers and one to injury. I have the potential to come in and play early in their system. He was real with me about the depth chart and he laid out the whole thing. He's also real close to my family; my grandmother loves him to death. He's a really awesome guy."

So, where does Maryland stand now?

"This is really hard, I haven't gotten time to dissect everything since I'm coming home," he said. "It was a great visit the whole way through. There were new aspects to Maryland and I've been up there more than I can count on two hands. It's a really dynamic place and you can't get any better opportunities with interns from around the area academically. I love Maryland to death.

"I still want to see them progress this year. They have a big game in Morgantown, going to West Virginia. I want to see what happens."

However, unlike a week ago Hughes is a bit more reluctant to name leaders anymore.

"It is hard for me to have favorites now," he said. "Honestly there are no favorites, cause things keep changing. There is stuff with North Carolina and then everything else with other schools."

Next up is an official this week to Virginia Tech.

"I want to see Virginia Tech go ahead and take care of East Carolina," he said. "I want to see them get out of this funk they are in. They had a pretty rough week coming off of Boise, I want them to get it done cause they have to."