Hicks can do it all

When you're a star player in small school ball in East Texas, you do everything but drive the bus home after the game. But if you ask Whitehouse, Texas, three-star safety Stephen Hicks, he wouldn't have it any other way.

"I'm a running back, and I had three carries for 70 yards in our game last week," he said.

"I did real good on defense at safety. I had 10 or 11 tackles and one forced fumble. I tried to jump on it, but I slipped. Then I had two knockdowns. I could have done better, but I did pretty good.

"I love football, and I never want to come off the field. I want to do everything I can to help my team win."

Hicks, who is 5-foot-10 and 175 pounds, already has a slew of college coaches coming after him. Ranked as the No. 43 safety in the nation and the No. 87 player in Texas, Hicks said he recently talked with Purdue, Colorado and Florida about taking an official visit. He has scholarship offers from Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma State, Purdue and Tennessee.

"I actually just got off the phone with two coaches," he said. "I just set up two visits Purdue and Colorado. Right now I'm working with Florida to set up that visit, and I think that's going to happen next week some time. I'll have more exact dates with Purdue and Colorado here this week some time.

"The main teams I'm interested in who have shown me some are Tennessee, LSU, Florida, Missouri, Colorado, Purdue, Nebraska, Houston, SMU, TCU, A&M, and Oklahoma State. I have offers from all of them except LSU, Florida and Texas A&M, but all of those schools have talked about being close. I hope they do."

Hicks said he thinks his play as a senior will help him earn offers from the Gators, Tigers and Aggies.

"Florida and LSU told me to keep up the good work and they'll be coming down to chat with me," he said. "I just like them, they have a good history, especially LSU. I like coach Les Miles and Urban Meyer. I like the coaching staffs a lot.

"I talked to LSU this week. I still have to talk to the coaches about visits, but I want to go to Florida when they play Florida State. That's a big rivalry. For LSU it doesn't really matter, I just want to be at a big game to see the atmosphere."

What about A&M?

"I went to the A&M camp this summer and that was about it," he said. "I had a pulled hamstring, so they told me to just come out. I pulled it running track last year, but they wanted me to come out and look around the campus. They always tell me to come down to watch practice, but I have school and all that other stuff to handle so I haven't made it up there since the summer."

Hicks said when the time does come to make the pick, he knows what will be important.

"Coaching staff and academics and that's about it," he said. "I'm looking at how the teams defense functions. I like usually four defensive backs with two safeties, two corners. Running the nickel at safety or corner is where I see myself. I like free. I like to hit, don't get me wrong, but free is more my style."