Texas Football: 3 Longhorns players that improved most in spring camp

Anthony Hill Jr., LB

One of the most exciting additions to the program during the spring semester for the Longhorns is the former elite five-star Denton Ryan linebacker recruit and true freshman early enrollee Anthony Hill Jr. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex native was one of the highest-rated signees in the Longhorns 2022 recruiting class.

And Hill proved why he held that elusive five-star status coming out of Denton Ryan High School rather quickly during the spring. In the last few weeks of spring practice, we heard more about Hill standing out in terms of his ability to be a plus defender at the strong-side linebacker position.

Combine that with the solid showing for Hill during the Orange-White Game on April 15, including multiple quarterback pressures and one sack, and you get a situation where I think he is the favorite to be the starter at sam linebacker heading into the fall.

Hill is just too much of a capable playmaker while proving to be adept as a pass-rusher at the linebacker position for Pete Kwiatkowski and the Longhorns to keep him off the field on most defensive snaps this fall. That pass-rushing ability was one of the more positive surprise emergences for Hill during the spring.

Another encouraging sign for Hill coming out of spring practice is the strides we heard he made contesting space and covering the flats in pass defense. He’s still got some work to do in both areas, but the fact that Hill is already making progress in some of the areas of improvement that were poignant for him coming into camp is huge.

CJ Vogel of TFB Texas (donor content) put it well when he said that “the price of Hill’s stock was already high, not it is over the moon.”