5-Star LB Anthony Hill stuns Texas football, commits to Texas A&M

A decision that was not anticipated to come before the end of the month of July involving a top target of the 2023 Texas football recruiting class happened to arrive on July 30. The elite five-star Denton-Ryan linebacker Anthony Hill was potentially the top priority for Texas in the 2023 class heading into the fall, but this staff officially missed out on him this weekend.

At noon on July 30, the elite in-state linebacker Hill took to social media to announce his commitment to the rival Texas A&M Aggies over the Longhorns. Hill picked the Aggies over the Longhorns a little more than one month after he initially narrowed his list down to just these two schools.

Hill announced his commitment to Texas A&M following his unofficial visit to College Station this week. And this comes a little more than one month after he had his official visit to Austin to see Texas, which came specifically back in mid-June.

This announcement from Hill clearly sparked quite the reaction from some Texas commits. It looks like this also came as a bit of a surprise to them this weekend.

Texas football loses 5-Star LB target Anthony Hill to Texas A&M

Even the five-star DeSoto wide receiver and recent Texas commit Johntay Cook took to Twitter this weekend to tweet at the four-star Marlin (TX) edge rusher Derion Gullette after Hill gave his pledge to the Aggies. Cook tweeted at Gullette on July 30 saying “don’t switch up”.

Moreover, it’s hard to imagine that the Texas coaching staff will just give up on this one heading into the fall. I would think that special teams coordinator/tight ends coach Jeff Banks and the Longhorns don’t give up on this one until Hill puts pen to paper on signing day either in December 2022 or February 2023.

This will heighten the importance for the Longhorns to hit on the likes of Gullette, four-star Friendswood edge rusher Braylan Shelby, four-star Austin-Westlake edge rusher Colton Vasek, and even five-star Venice (FL) edge rusher Damon Wilson. Texas just lost their biggest target, by a good margin, for the 2023 class at the linebacker position.

While it’s hard to see the Longhorns fully recovering from this miss on the recruiting trail in the 2023 class, it’s now imperative that the staff gets at least two of those four aforementioned edge players by the first signing day.

This is really the first big win on the recruiting trail for the 2023 class for the Aggies over the Longhorns. Hill and five-star Katy-Paetow defensive lineman David Hicks were clearly the two biggest recruits heading into the fall that Texas and Texas A&M would be duking it out for.

And Texas is probably still going to be fighting to keep their chances alive with Hill throughout the fall, despite this late July commitment to the Aggies.

Texas still sits with 20 commits in the 2023 class after the addition of the touted four-star Dr. Phillips (FL) offensive tackle Payton Kirkland last weekend. At the moment, Texas holds two linebacker commits in the 2023 class in the four-star North Crowley product S’Maje Burrell and four-star Kahuku (HI) product Liona Lefau.