Toledo's Hicks Wild, Fantastic in Record-Setting Performance

Taylor Hicks has a bit of a wild glint in his eye.

Or maybe it just seems that way, after watching him run all over Concrete's defense for 48 minutes.

The best example came in the second half of Saturday's first-round State 2B playoff game in Sedro-Woolley. Toledo was backed into its own territory, facing fourth-and-15 and ready to kick it away for the first time. Hicks was the punter.

Except he didn't punt. The 5-foot-9, 185-pound junior took the snap, darted to his right, zipped across the line of scrimmage and picked up 21 yards and a first down.

"I totally, 100-percent trust him there," Toledo coach Jeremy Thibault said. "Everyone probably crapped their pants and called me an idiot for fake-punting on fourth-and-15, but that's him. As soon as that kid turns his back, he runs. If it doesn't work, I take the fall, but that's his job."

It was just another highlight in a game full of them for Hicks, who broke Danny Wood's single-game school rushing record with a whopping 393 yards on Saturday.

Wood ran for 382 yards on 30 carries back in 2003, with eight touchdowns, in a 69-52 win over Raymond — in a September game for what was, at the time, an 0-2 Toledo team. Hicks' crazy game came in a loser-out playoff contest.

"It was a big night," Hicks said. "Just a few lucky breakaways and a few broken tackles, and it turned out great."

It was an understated comment on a performance that was anything but.

"What's there to day? The kid's an animal," teammate Grant McEwen said. "He just runs through tackles like none other. All the time he puts in in the weight room shows out on the field."

Any measure of Hicks' offensive performance on Saturday was impressive. Twenty-six carries at an average of around 15 yards each; 131 yards and two touchdowns in the first half; 188 yards on his seven touchdown runs alone.

Yes, seven touchdown runs. Five in the second half, after a bit of a pep talk from his coach.

Hicks, as outstanding as he was with the ball in his hands, was having trouble on the defensive side covering Concrete's dynamic running-back-turned-receiver Gibson Fichter.

"He was burning me. They either ran a cross, or he'd come out and run a wheel on my side," Hicks said. "I was playing strong safety before — run first, pass second — and they moved me up to linebacker, and I was covering a receiver. It really threw me for a whirl at first."

He got a pep talk. Maybe it was a stern lecture, or tough love.

"I told Taylor, 'Pull your head out of your ass,'" Thibault said. "'You're having a great game, and you're over here sulking like you think something's wrong.'"

There was nothing at all wrong with Hicks running the ball on Saturday. His second touch, on the Indians' first drive, went 72 yards for a touchdown. His last touch, in the fourth quarter, went 45 yards for a touchdown.

"He'd read blocks, push me, and just do whatever he had to do to get through the hole and get to the end zone," fellow running back Dakota Robins said, before hearing the final number. "393? Holy cow. That's unbelievable."

Robins, a sophomore, said he's picked up a lot running in the same backfield as Hicks.

"At the beginning of the year I used to go down easy," the 6-0, 175-pound sophomore, said. "I watched Taylor, and he talked to me. Coached me. Now, on contact, I'm still driving legs — spinning, juking, not trying to just hit people, trying to get in the end zone."

Thibault, a former Centralia High School assistant coach, compared Hicks to Zack Baldwin, an Evergreen 2A Conference Offensive MVP with the Tigers who set a school record with 336 rushing yards against North Kitsap back in 2010.

"Taylor's probably a little more athletic, and Baldwin was probably a little bit bigger, more physical kid," Thibault said. "But Taylor is now doing the same thing."

How much more of the same can he do? Is 400 rushing yards — a laughable number in any league, classification or state — in the conversation?

"With these next games coming up?" he said. "Four hundred, that's just a fantasy, man."

The next one, two or three games aside — with undefeated North Beach up next, in the state quarterfinals — Hicks still has his entire senior season to run, and the Indians start just three seniors.

Sure, 400 is a fantasy. And on Saturday, Hicks was fantastic.