RB Gerard Wicks Commits to Washington State

Running Back Gerard Wicks out of Long Beach Poly, CA has committed via instagram to the WSU football team for the class of 2013. Wicks’ commit continues a torrid June for head coach Mike Leach and his staff as they now have 9 commitments for ’13, with this being the first RB commit. He was being recruited by a few Pac-12 schools but at this point only had offers from Nevada, Colorado St and Wazzu.

Wicks is a compact 5-11, 195. He is the 127th ranked running back according to Scout and a 2 star prospect. Rivals, however, has him rated as a 3 star prospect. He should garner some better attention by season’s end (as we expect a few of our lower ranked commits thus far to do).

Gerard shares a large amount of carries with fellow classmate and running back Manusamoa Luuga, so he doesn’t put up the stats that some with his talent would if they were the primary feature back. He still put up 11 touchdowns though and averaged a whopping 8 yards per carry. There’s no reason to believe he won’t have a tremendous senior year and have his stock rise.

My thoughts: I am ecstatic about this guy! Gerard is fast, but he is a powerful and punishing runner with hard working legs, but he’s also got the ability to make a move when necessary. When I watch his video I love the fact that he simply runs through arm tackles, and most of the time they don’t really even slow him down once he’s hit the second level. Gerard also has a nice sense for when there is space to run to and when there isn’t. When he knows there’s not, he will find a shoulder on a defender and just try and run through it! I think of Carl Winston with just a little more elusiveness when I watch the kid run, and that’s a really good thing.

Here are some junior season highlights of the newest Coug.