Kyle Hicks was entering sixth grade when EA Sports released Madden 06 in August 2005. Among the game's new features was the highly popular "Truck Stick," which allowed offensive players to break tackles by lowering their shoulder into a defender.
Hicks has his own version of the Truck Stick. It's called "Being Good."
In 2011, Hicks was a junior running back at Martin High School in Arlington, Texas. His 113 rushing yards helped lead the Warriors to a playoff victory over Euless Trinity — whom they lost to a year earlier. On late-game one run, the four-star recruit with a pile of Power Five offers took a pitch and sprinted to the field side, where he side-stepped a defender, calmly spun out of a tackle and glided into the end zone.
Three months later he committed to Texas but flipped to TCU in December 2012 and signed with the Horned Frogs the following February. After two fairly quiet years (644 total yards and four touchdowns on 127 touches) Hicks exploded as a junior, racking up 1,459 total yards and 14 touchdowns.
MORE: Ranking the 5 Players Most Likely to Lead Big 12 in Rushing in 2017
The biggest reason for the career year were broken tackles. Hicks forced 25 missed tackles in their first five game and finished the season with 51, the most of any returning Big 12 running back — by far (Justin Crawford, 35) — according to Pro Football Focus.
He was particularly elusive against Baylor, rushing for 192 yards and five touchdowns on 26 carries (7.4 yards per carry). Hicks terrorized the Bears with the same repertoire of cut-backs, side-steps, jukes and actual truck sticks that confused Euless Trinity five years earlier and made him the 15th-ranked running back in the 2013 class.
“He’s one of our top weapons,” head coach Gary Patterson said last year. “We try to protect him a little bit from too many hard hits, but he’s still got to get his touches.”
Hicks also protects himself with the "Being Good" feature.
