’26 WR/DB among the better (and faster) players in the entire commonwealth
Mikey Hager was going along “great guns” through the first six (6) games of the ’24 football season before being derailed by injury. The game Hager had against Lexington Christian Academy (LCA) alone was enough to whet the appetites of recruiters while demonstrating both Hager’s positional ability and his freakishly athletic skill set. Hager will have a tremendous breakout season provided he stays healthy. With the work Hager has put in this offseason, it should be a relatively safe bet Hager gets amply recruited for the next level. Are you looking for a steal, mister college football recruiter? We have a “Dude” for you, right here!
HB Lyon, Scouting Director, “KPGFootball”
Pikeville, KY: The best advice I ever got was to do something you love for a living. If you do this, you will never have to really work a day in your life.
It is a fine sentiment. It is also very true.
Does Pikeville’s Mikey Hager (’26, WR/DB) like football? We would say he loves it. That is what his willingness to work on his craft and his game-time performances all suggest.
This Mikey, the Hager variety, loves football. We would wager about as much as “Little Mikey” loved Quaker Oats’s “Life Cereal.”
Life Cereal was popular in the 70s. It was a product first introduced in 1961.
It is still around today. It comes in four varieties: Cinnamon, Vanilla, Chocolate, and Original.
The cereal was a brown, checked patterned square consisting of oat flour, corn flour, and whole-wheat flour. It was supposed to be good for you which was the curse of all curses with kids in the 60s and 70s.
If our parents told us it was nutritious, we weren’t eating it. We wanted straight, sugary junk.
In the 70s, Life Cereal launched one of the most popular commercials ever produced. In the commercial, linked here, two kids are discussing the cereal in question and deciding they probably wouldn’t like it because it was good for them.
A cereal’s being good for you was the death knell on its being popular. That was the belief anyway.
Instead of eating it themselves, these two young lads elected to try it out on a finicky, four-year-old named “Little Mikey.” The theory was if Little Mikey liked it, it will taste delicious because Mikey doesn’t like anything. The theory seemed sound…
As luck would have it, Mikey loved it. The rest went down in advertising history. The add campaign was among the longest running TV spots in history, running from 1972-1986.
Do you know what is even better for a football program than its players eating a steady diet of “Life” cereal? How about WR/DB combo guys who clip off 40-yard dashes in sub-4.5 second times?
College football coaches don’t just like those numbers. They love them!
HS WR/DB types clipping off 4.4, 40s is hard to find
Friday Night Fletch
High school WR/DBs running 4.4s-4.5s don’t grow on trees. In fact, one may discover those hard to find. We know where there is one.
Mikey Hager is such a guy. Hager is flying a bit under the radar coming into the ’25 season partly because Hager plays 1A football in the Appalachia mountains and partly because Hager was lost to injury his junior year after only six games.
Hager has had an incredible offseason. Hager has worked very hard and has impressed on the camp/combine circuit at numerous stops along the way.
The offseason work in the weight room looks to have paid noticeable dividends. Hager is built like a brick crap house.
Hager is 6’0,” and weighs 185-pounds. The ’26, two-way, WR/DB superstar was going along, great guns, in ’24 before being derailed by injury.
Through six games, Hager was averaging 18-yards a reception (17 for 306-yards) with 3-TDs. On defense, Hager had registered 15-tackles, a-TFL, and an INT in those same six games.
What really tells the story, to us, is what he did against Lexington’s Christian Academy (LCA). We place a premium on how well athletes perform against other great athletes. LCA’s roster takes a back seat to no one, at least not in the commonwealth of Kentucky.
Hager had 168 yards receiving against LCA last season
KHSAA statistical website
Last year, LCA won 11-games in 2A against only three (3) defeats, bowing out in the semis to Beechwood in Fort Mitchell, KY. On September 6, 2024, LCA beat Pikeville 40-26 in Lexington.
On a night where his team was a tad bit out-talented, and certainly outperformed, Hager put on quite the exhibition. Hager caught nine (9) passes covering 168 yards with two (2) TDs against the Eagles.
There aren’t too many guys who can ever say they had a night like that playing LCA. It gives you an idea what this prospect is capable of doing against next level athletes.
College programs, particularly ones with elite academics, seem to be taking considerable notice. Hager’s carrying a 4.0 GPA at one of Kentucky’s more elite high schools has helped.
Hager has camped at both Dayton (FCS, Division I) and Brown (Ivy-league, FCS, Division I). Hager has visited Centre College. Hager is getting recruited by programs like MIT and Johns Hopkins.
Hager’s performance at these camps makes it unlikely any of these programs intend to surrender. Hager’s running speed (4.44-seconds in the 40 at Dayton’s camp and 4.47-seconds, same distance, at Brown’s) and athleticism (35-inch, standing vertical) will insure he will continue to be courted heavily.
Hager has really put in the offseason work this summer. The 185-pounder has his bench press at 245-pounds, his squat at 350-pounds, and his power clean at 250-pounds.
So with the game on the line, in ’25, we have a simple suggestion. Give the ball to Mikey. Mikey likes it. Mikey can house it from (pretty much) anywhere.
Get up there on the line and try to jam Mikey Hager from Pikeville! Go on now, get up there!
Yeah, that is what I thought.
This is Friday Night Fletch, reporting for KPGFootball and KPI Newspaper Group, reminding you to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE!
If you enjoyed this article and wish to gain full-access to the site, then subscribe monthly to Kentucky Prep Gridiron by following the prompts!
© The information contained on this site is the copyrighted intellectual property of KPGFootball. Any unauthorized dissemination of this material without the author’s express written consent is strictly prohibited!
Leave a Reply