Hilliard gets offer on visit

Three-star running back/athlete Dalton Hilliard (5-11, 182, 4.48) from Honolulu (Hawai'i) Punahou is now on his way home after taking his second official visit to UCLA. He is a pretty tough customer, who played a game on Friday Night while battling food poisoning and then hopped on the red eye to Los Angeles to go on his second official visit. His first official was to Nebraska.

Rivals.com was able to get a hold of Hilliard earlier this morning (Monday October 20th) before his journey home to get his take on his visit.

"It went really well," Hilliard said. "It's funny, but UCLA has been recruiting me ever since the beginning."

"I think that UCLA is definitely headed in the right direction under coach Rick Neuheisel, and I'm glad they finally offered," Hilliard said. "It was pretty tempting for me to commit."

"I have always said I wanted UCLA to offer," Hilliard said. "I'm really excited about UCLA and I want to make a decision in the near future."

"One thing that repeatedly came up by players and others that I met was what a great coaching staff UCLA has," Hilliard said. "UCLA has the best offensive coordinator (Norm Chow), the best defensive coordinator (DeWayne Walker) and a great head coach in Coach Neuheisel. They are going to bring the program back to where it was during UCLA's glory years."

"I also really liked UCLA's players," Hilliard said. "One thing that the players repeatedly said is they are fired up about the direction of the program.

"They (the players) are really excited, even the younger players that I hung out with," Hilliard said. "It was good to hear that from the players because they're the ones that are going to do the playing."

"I hung out with Aundre Dean, E.J. Woods, Milton Knox, Donovan Carter and a couple of other guys," Hilliard said. "They were all good guys."

"I have a visit to Arizona this coming weekend to Arizona," Hilliard said. "I'm thinking that after that trip, I'll make my decision."

Hilliard has offers on the table from the likes of Arizona, Stanford, Washington, Washington State, Baylor, Colorado, Nebraska, UNLV, Utah, Notre Dame, Army and Hawai'i.

Hilliard earned a spot on the Rivals.com Hawaii Preseason Top 15 team for the class of 2009 landing as the Aloha State's No. 4 prospect at any position.