LAFAYETTE, La. (The Daily Advertiser) – A 14-year-old who has not yet played a down of high school football was offered a scholarship Wednesday by UL coach Mark Hudspeth, a Mississippi newspaper reported.

According to NCAA rules, Hudspeth is not permitted to publicly discuss a recruit.

But it has been confirmed by a UL source with knowledge of the offer that the report is true.

The player — according to the Sun Herald of Biloxi, Mississippi – is McKinnley Jackson, a 6-foot-1, 272-pound defensive lineman from George County High in Lucedale, Mississippi.

The offer was made during a football camp in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

The Cajuns have held satellite camps in Mississippi the last few years under Hudspeth, who is heading into his sixth season as UL’s head coach.

The Cajun coach has extensive ties to Mississippi, having been raised there and having served as Mississippi State’s receivers coach before taking the job at UL.

According to the Sun Herald: “Jackson said he hit the field at the camp going ‘110 percent’ with hopes of earning an offer, but he was surprised when Hudspeth pulled him aside and talked to him.”

“It’s really a blessing,” Jackson told Sun Herald reporter Patrick Magee. “He said he’d like to offer me, but he wanted me to think about it. He said, ‘You’ve got many years left and don’t stress over it.’

“He was a very nice guy. I would like to play for him one day.”

George County coach Matt Caldwell told the Sun Herald that Jackson is “a big, athletic kid for 14 years old” and “physically mature for his age,” and that he has “a good attitude.”

Jackson’s cousin Tristan Jackson, according to the Sun Belt, is a defensive back who played at Central Arkansas and for Edmonton and Saskatchewan of the CFL.

“I guess Coach Hud (Hudspeth) liked what he saw out of him,” Caldwell, who had his first coaching interaction with Jackson this spring, told the Biloxi paper. “It’s the first time I’ve seen that in 20 years of coaching.”

Scholarship offers are non-binding.