Florida Football Recruiting: Zelus Hicks is a thumper

Unlike the previous regime, recruiting doesn’t stop for Florida football just because the season is going, and every home game is an opportunity to convince prospects that Gainesville is where they should play their college football.

As Billy Napier puts the finishing touches on his 2024 class, one of the top safeties in the country from the 2026 class was in town over the weekend.

Florida Football: Hard-hitting

Zelus Hicks is listed at 6’1″ and 180 pounds. He is a five-star safety on the 247 Sports composite out of Lilburn, GA (about an hour from Athens), with offers from Auburn, Tennesee, Georgia, and Miami, among others.

Like a lot of prospects we have covered here at Hail Florida Hail, one of the things we look for when deciding if in our minds someone is a five-star vs. four-star vs. three-star is whether or not they jump out on film and if they feel like the most dominate player on the field.

And for Hicks, there is no mistaking that he is the best player out there.

When Hicks hits you, he hits you hard. You start to feel bad for some of the guys he tackles on film because the collisions are often a one-way street that sends the player with the ball backward while Hicks is left standing tall.

His coverage skills when one-on-one are solid, too, and he was in the FBU Freshman All-American Bowl and was named a top performer at the event.

Like most top-rated safeties in the class of 2026, Hicks is at his best when flying downhill to the ball carrier. As is the case for all safeties, the next evolution is demonstrating an ability to hold up in the back end of coverage.

It’s going to be tough to pry Hicks away from Georgia, but getting him on campus early is a positive first step as the Gators continue to try and restock their defensive pipeline.

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