All Sooners

Oklahoma Early Enrollees: Why RB Kalib Hicks Gives OU a 'Tremendous Amount of Ability'

Thanks to competition from a talented older brother and playing against some of the best high schoolers in America, the Sooners' newest running back may be ready to play now.

John E. Hoover

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Editor’s Note: This is Part 12 of a 14-part series on Oklahoma’s early enrollees in the 2023 recruiting class.

Many times, graduating high school early and launching one’s college football career pays off. Many times, it doesn’t.

While early enrollees are navigating new realms of pain and commitment, a lot of their friends are back home — playing basketball, running track or just hanging out and taking full advantage of the affliction known as “senioritis.”

In Oklahoma’s case, 14 newcomers have chosen to make that sudden transition from boys to men. Jerry Schmidt’s winter workouts might seem impossible at first, and then the summer grind is even harder. In between, the coaching staff takes over, and spring football practice puts them ahead of their summer counterparts.

In this series, AllSooners examines each of the 14 newcomers and projects their impact on Brent Venables’ football team in 2023.

— — — —

One reason Oklahoma coach Brent Venables called freshman running back Kalib Hicks “week in and week out ... the best player on the field” last fall was because Hicks had an older brother who could show him the way.

When Hicks was just a sophomore at Ryan High School in Denton, TX, big brother Ke’ori was a senior. Ke’ori helped lead Ryan to a Class 5A-1 state championship that year with 944 yards rushing and 10 touchdowns.

Little brother was pretty good, too, leading the Raiders with 117 rushing attempts and gaining 838 yards with five touchdowns. That Ryan squad was loaded with big-time talent, including current Sooner safety Billy Bowman. But the running back room was definitely a family affair.

“His older brother was two years older,” said Ryan coach Dave Henigan. “They played the same position, too. There’s definitely that.”

RB Kalib Hicks

  • 5-11, 200
  • Denton, TX
  • 247 Sports: 3-star, No. 536 overall, No. 37 RB
  • Rivals: 3-star, unranked overall, No. 8 RB
  • On3: 3-star, No. 297 overall, No. 19 RB
  • ESPN: 3-star, unranked overall, No. 44 RB
  • Background: Hicks split time with his big brother as a sophomore, then was a two-year starter for powerhouse Denton Ryan. His first Power 5 offer (Colorado) came seven months before his junior season began — and then he rushed for 1,448 yards and 18 TDs that fall. Hicks was also offered by TCU, Wisconsin and Missouri prior to the start of the season, and Kansas, Baylor, Texas Tech and Ole Miss followed suit. Last February, Alabama offered, then South Carolina, Penn State and Auburn, followed by Oklahoma last May. Hicks visited the Sooners in June, then committed four days later.
  • 2023 Projection: Jeff Lebby has typically used a stable of running backs during his tenure as an offensive coordinator. With Eric Gray off to the NFL, Lebby will apparently have Marcus Major back for his final season in 2023, but the job seems to belong to current freshman Jovantae Barnes, who ranked second on the team in carries and rushing yards last season. Barnes and fellow freshman Gavin Sawchuk both went over 100 yards in the Cheez-It Bowl — it was Sawchuk’s first substantial action of the season — and they seem to be the future of the position at OU. But Hicks and fellow early enrollee Daylan Smothers are on campus and will get a good look this spring and should be physically ready to contribute come fall.

That kind of sibling rivalry often pays big dividends for the youngster. Ke’ori signed with Texas A&M-Commerce out of high school, and Kalib last month signed with Oklahoma. He’s a Sooner now, a mid-term graduate, an early enrollee, and his college football career is set to take off.

Kalib Hicks led Ryan in rushing each of the last two seasons, with 1,448 yards and 18 touchdowns as a junior and 929 yards and eight TDs as a senior.

His senior year was cut short by injuries, but he finished his varsity career with 3,508 yards total offense and 34 touchdowns for one of Texas’ powerhouse programs.

“Denton Ryan, as good of football as you'll see in high school,” Venables said. “Week in and week out, he was the best player on the field.”

“I would agree,” Henigan said.

Against that Texas-tough competition, Hicks averaged 7.2 yards per carry as a sophomore, 6.7 as a junior and 7.8 as a senior.

“Just tremendous power and strength,” Venables said. “He runs through trash very well. He really runs behind his pads well. Great, great young man.”

Along with Daylan Smothers from North Carolina, Oklahoma has two freshman running backs — both already on campus, both ready to compete this spring — with similar running styles.

“Size-speed ratio,” said offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby. “These are guys that are put together. They can really, really run. We want speed. That’s going to be a huge part of how we recruit moving forward. These two guys can run. They’re big, they’re physical. When you get on Hollywood, you realize how big he is. With Daylan, how big he’s got a chance to be. Then you see Kalib in person, a thick, strong-bodied dude who can get in the open field and go score. Both these guys got a chance to be special and are great people.”

Hicks is a 3-star prospect, but could be vastly underrated.

“He’s extremely talented,” Hennigan told AllSooners. “He’s fast enough and he’s worked on his speed in track and made himself even faster. He’s got good size. I mean, I think when he left here he was a little over 200 pounds. Got good vision and good change-of-direction. He catches the ball really well coming out of the backfield. So yeah, he’s got a tremendous amount of ability.”

Oklahoma’s 2023 early enrollees

In his high school career, Hicks caught 28 passes for 293 yards and three touchdowns. But catching the football isn’t usually the hard part of the passing game for freshmen running backs. Ball security is the first thing they have to learn. Pass protection is the second.

“The big thing that he’s gonna have to learn transitioning to the college level is the blocking piece,” Henigan said. “You know, that’s part of the deal.

“I think it’s hard. I mean, first of all, he had to block here and protect the quarterback here. But they see so many more looks in college than you see in high school. So the mental piece is really important, being able to pick up all your assignments — first of all, knowing who to block before you actually have to physically block. So yeah, that’ll be, I think, as big a learning curve for him as anything as he goes up there.

“The carry-the-ball part, you know, I’m not gonna say it’s easy. It’s not. You know, it’s different, certainly, at the college level. You might be a home run hitter and in high school you’re breaking off a lot of long runs. But in college, you know, those long runs are few and far between. I mean, you got to earn your yards. So that's a learning curve as well.”

As Venables said, Hicks excels at running through “trash” — arm tackles, body blows, incidental contact. He’ll find as he comes out of his first offseason under strength coach Jerry Schmidt and his staff that he’ll be even better at it in the fall.

The weight room, Henigan said, is a place Hicks is already quite comfortable.

“Yeah, for sure, I mean, he's very naturally gifted,” Henigan said. “He's strong, just naturally, but he works at it — and we have a good strength program here. So he had a great foundation, I think, coming in to OU as far as that goes. He’s a very strong kid and he likes the weight room.”

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John E. Hoover
JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.

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