EXCLUSIVE: ‘Underrecruited’ Haulcy finally getting his chance to shine
05/13/2025
By Hunt Palmer
A.J. Haulcy spent a lot of time waiting for coaches to call during his high school career.
Few did.
When his agency got a call from LSU in April, his dream had finally been realized. It just took three extra years.
“LSU was really the first school that my agency told me hit them up,” Haulcy told Matt Moscona on After Further Review. “It was just on a low-key level. There wasn’t really a lot of pressure behind it. That’s when I had another school, so it came down to those two schools, and I was really thinking LSU the whole way, for real…LSU has really been there from the jump.”
Haulcy ultimately chose LSU over Miami and Ole Miss. He’ll play his fourth and final college season in Baton Rouge, just four hours his hometown of Missouri City, Tex. There he was a standout for Thurgood Marshall High School and a member of a state finalist team.
He earned three stars from multiple recruiting services but never quite garnered the attention he felt he deserved from college coaches.
“I felt like I was under recruited,” Haulcy said. “I don’t know what it was. I was always thinking that I was going to get more offers and more schools and more interest was going to come my way, but it just never went that way. Every day I was waking up; after games I was looking, checking my phone just thinking more opportunities were going to come. It just never happened that way.
His Thurgood Marshall career ended, and it was time to find a new football home.
“After high school, I had seven offers,” Haulcy said. “I think my biggest offer was Kansas, but they had a coaching change. (New Mexico) ended up calling my phone talking to me every day, so I ended up going to New Mexico.”
Haulcy broke int the starting lineup quickly as a freshman. He became a ball-hawking force in the Lobo secondary.
In one game at Fresno State, Haulcy made 24 stops which was the most in college football in four years.
“I had 24 tackles and an interception. I was flying around that day,” Haulcy said. “I was giving it all I got. The tackles just come to me, really. After the first quarter, I was like, ‘man, I gotta pick it up,’ because I felt like I wasn’t giving it my all. After that first quarter when I said I had to pick it up, I just came out there running to the ball every single play. There’s no play that I took off that I did not run to the ball…that’s what I ended up with.”
His freshman successes out west allowed him to step up in class and return home to Houston where he joined the Cougars for the 2023 season.
Over two years as a Cougar, Haulcy was named Big 12 Defensive Newcomer of the Year, First Team All-Big 12 by the AP and Big 12 coaches and an honorable mention All-American by Phil Steele.
He led Houston in tackles as a sophomore and tied for the Big 12 lead in interceptions as a junior playing both strong and free safety. Haulcy prefers the strong side.
“I like playing both, really,” Haulcy said. “I like to play strong safety more because I feel like there’s more action. You can roll down. You can drop to the hook. There’s a lot of things that you can do and impact the game at strong safety. That’s how a see it.”
It was time to give the national powers one more chance to give him a call.
They did.
Ole Miss came to Houston to visit in person. And Haulcy planned to take his one visit to LSU, but his position coach at Houston, Zac Etheridge, was at Miami and wanted Haulcy to visit South Beach.
“(Miami) amazing,” Haulcy said. “Coach E, he did coach at Houston. He was trying to get me down there to Miami. I was supposed to only go on one visit, but the relationship me and him had made me take a second visit. That’s really why I went on two visits instead of one.”
Ultimately, LSU won out.
“It’s LSU, man. It’s not going to get no better than this right here,” Haulcy said. “If this is what you want, and this is what you’re ready to do, and if you love the game of football, it brings all that. You’ve got the alumni. You’ve got the whole city of Baton Rouge rooting for you. How many people does the stadium hold? 102,000? I’m just ready to show the world what I’ve got.”
The quotes in this story are from A.J. Haulcy’s conversation with Matt Moscona on After Further Review.