Get to know 2023 Texas commit Anthony Hill Jr.
Whether you’re a diehard recruiting fan in need of a refresher or a casual fan in need of only the particulars, this will be the series for you.
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The first national signing period for college football runs from December 21-23. That puts it a week later than normal, which allows you even more time to familiarize yourself with the next class charged with helping restore Texas back to national prominence.
The preceding 2022 class is already off to a good start, but the way to win at a consistently high level is to stack talented class after talented class. At all times you need young players developing, creating competition, and providing valuable depth before becoming quality starters.
The top 5 contending 2023 class is just what Texas needed after the top 5 2022 class.
In the lead-up to NSD1, Inside Texas will offer profiles of each member of the 2023 signing class.
Next up, Anthony Hill Jr.
The Player: Anthony Hill Jr, LB, Denton (Texas) Ryan, 6-foot-2, 228 pounds
The Rating: 97.77, On3 Consensus five-star
The Ranking:
The Recruitment: Hill’s recruitment began almost four years ago when he was a budding freshman at Ryan. Over the next three years, Hill would collect 33 offers with his first coming from Florida A&M in December 2019. Alabama, Michigan, LSU, Georgia, and USC were among his top offers, but he narrowed things down to Texas and Texas A&M last summer before picking the Aggies. Texas stayed close despite the verbal pledge, and after he reopened his recruitment, he visited Austin twice, including last weekend. Texas sent five coaches to Hill’s home last week and he surprised all of them with a commitment.
The Projection: Hill is something truly rare, a 6-foot-2, 220+ pound athlete with power and acceleration who actually plays inside linebacker at a high level in high school. Normally players like Hill play as an outside linebacker and have to recover years of lost reps in college to learn how to play inside. Hill could actually end up outside because of that power and acceleration, but he’ll probably stay inside where he’s developed a lot of invaluable familiarity. He’s the ideal Will linebacker in a zone blitz scheme, comparable to De’Gabriel Floyd and truly the sort of player Todd Orlando or Dave Aranda would crave in systems closely related to Pete Kwiatkowski’s. Denton Ryan worked to keep him aligned in the box and covered up so he could wreck run games playing downhill or scraping into adjacent gaps and then turned him loose on 3rd down. He makes sense in Pete Kwiatkowski’s defense as a boundary inside linebacker who focuses on piling up tackles and coming through interior gaps like a bull on zone blitzes. – Ian Boyd, from Recruiting Notebook
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The Reasoning: “I have so many relationships with the players and staff. I played against some of them, I played with some of them, and the opportunity to play at Texas was something I couldn’t turn down.” – Anthony Hill Jr.
The Relationship: “I’m close with a lot of the Texas coaches, but mostly Coach (Chris) Gilbert (UT’s Director of High School Relations). He was one of the first coaches to really show me love and we’ve grown close ever since.”
The Education: Major in business, minor in psychology
The Enrollment: January 2023.
The Final Word: Hill’s signature will be one of the most important on the defensive side for the Class of 2023. Hill’s ability at linebacker is undeniable and he’ll likely play early because of it. The Horns had a solid class of linebackers before his pledge, but now have one of the top hauls in all of college football. The pipeline of Ryan-to-Austin continues to flow.
Series:
Connor Stroh, OL, Frisco (Texas) Wakeland
Johntay Cook, WR, Desoto (Texas)
Will Randle, TE, New Orleans (La.) Isidore Newman
Trevor Goosby, OL, Melissa (Texas)
Derion Gullette, EDGE/LB, Teague (Texas)
Spencer Shannon, TE, Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei
Andre Cojoe, OL, Mansfield (Texas) Timberview
Billy Walton, EDGE, Dallas (Texas) South Oak Cliff
Cedric Baxter, RB, Orlando (Fla.) Edgewater
Jaydon Chatman, OL, Killeen (Texas) Harker Heights
Malik Muhammad, CB, Dallas (Texas) South Oak Cliff
Sydir Mitchell, DL, Oradell (N.J.) Bergen Catholic
Ryan Niblett, WR, Aldine (Texas) Eisenhower
Payton Kirkland, OL, Orlando (Fla.) Dr. Phillips
