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T H E C L A S S O F 2 0 1 8 >> WHAT HE DID Slade's high school career came to an end in late November when Hylton lost to Woodbridge, 28-14, in the Virginia 6A quarter;nals. The Bulldogs, who ;nished 9-4, got a big li> from their star senior running back, as Slade ;n- ished the season with 1,978 yard rushing on 179 attempts (11.1 yards per carry) and scored 30 touchdowns. He also had 22 re- ceptions for 283 yards (12.9 yards per catch) and ;ve TDs. Slade was a four-year starter at one of Virginia's top high school programs, helping lead Hylton to a 33-14 record during his tenure in the back;eld. WHAT HE WON Slade began racking up awards a>er his ;rst varsity season, as he was named a freshman All-American by MaxPreps in 2014. Following his sen- ior year, he was named Virginia's Gatorade Player of the Year and was a ;rst-team All-Met choice by The Wash- ington Post. He also was invited to play in the Under Armour All-America Game. Rivals.com has awarded Slade four stars and named him the No. 37 overall prospect in the Class of 2018, No. 2 prospect in Virginia and No. 2 all-pur- pose running back nationally. WHERE HE VISITED Slade received of- fers from schools in every major confer- ence and paid visits to Florida, Florida State, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio State, Tennessee, Virginia and Virginia Tech before committing to Penn State in February 2017, just a>er signing day for the previous class. He took seven uno=- cial trips to University Park in 2017 be- fore using his o=cial visit Dec. 8-10, and he stood ;rm with Penn State even though the team hadn't yet replaced de- parted running backs coach Charles Hu< when the early signing period began. "At the end of the day, he felt comfortable saying, 'I want to go to Penn State be- cause I love Penn State, I love the guys on the team, I really like the coaching sta<, and I think Coach is going to go hire someone really good who is going to help me develop and help us win a bunch of games,' " James Franklin said. QUOTABLE Slade: "You see a lot of things at a lot of di, I ;rmly believe that Slade has the po- tential to compete with Mark Allen and Journey Brown for the No. 2 running back spot be- hind Miles Sanders his freshman year. The Nittany Lions have been enjoying a lot of success lately at landing top running back prospects, hav- ing signed Barkley, Sanders and now Slade in the past four years. ■ RUNNING START Considered one of the top 40 prospects in the country, Slade will likely have a chance to compete for play- ing time as a true freshman at Penn State. Photo cour- tesy of Rivals.com Rivals.com RICKY SLADE RIVALS ★★★★ | POS RB | HT 5-9 | WT 185 | HOME Woodbridge, Va. | SCHOOL C.D. Hylton

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