2025 Texas commit Rickey Stewart Jr. leads high school to comeback victory with Flu game
He wasn’t feeling well on Friday. But that didn’t stop Tyler (Texas) Chapel Hill senior four-star running back and Texas commit Rickey Stewart Jr from helping lead his Bulldogs back from a second-half, double-digit deficit for a non-district win from Wildcats Stadium against Whitehouse (Texas) on Friday night.
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The 5-foot-11, 190-pounder scored three touchdowns, including the game-leading score with 6:59 in the fourth quarter. This was after his 70-yard touchdown run that put Chapel Hill on the board for the first time late in the third quarter. And that was after getting sick earlier in the day, and running a mild fever with the flu. But he pushed on.
Stewart Jr. notched 172 yards and three scores on 16 carries during the 21-19 win over Whitehouse. It was a very noble effort under the circumstances, and one of the reasons Steve Sarkisian and Tashard Choice think so highly of the #bEASTtexas tailback.
Stewart Jr attended the Texas-Colorado State season opener and hopes to get back to Austin soon, specifically for the Texas-Georgia tilt on October 19th from Darrel K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.
The Tyler, Tx, native has been ultra productive since starting on varsity his freshman year. He’s collected 6,098 yards rushing and 64 touchdowns on 630 carries, while adding 400 yards receiving and six scores on 28 catches going into 2024. He’s also helped lead Chapel Hill to the state semifinals twice in 2021 and 2022, and state runner-up in 2023.
The former SMU pledge flipped to Texas last Spring after attending a scrimmage in Austin. Brooks relationship with Coach Choice grows by the day. Stewart is also working towards graduating early and enrolling at Texas in January.
Stewart is the No. 314 overall prospect and No. 24 tailback in the 2025 cycle, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He’s also the No. 46 player in Texas.
The Texas pledge was among a number of Class of 2025 Longhorns putting up numbers on Friday night.
On3 Director of Scouting and Rankings Charles Power has had high praise for the Lone Star State prospect.
“He’s at his best as an outside, one-cut perimeter runner,” Power said. “I can see him being very good in the zone blocking scheme. He’s a guy who is a slasher, gets downhill quickly and hits the hole and has the play speed to pull away from the defenses they’re facing.
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… He shows good contact balance as well, which is encouraging and something we look at with running backs. He runs through arm tackles, maximizes his yardage and I think it shows up on the film and the stat sheet.”
