Hill opens up on returning to MSU for Pro Day
STARKVILLE – Kylin Hill popped up on the Zoom call before anyone else.
He had a smile on his face. A clear yearning to answer any questions to come his way. A determination to make his Mississippi State Pro Day experience as fulfilling as possible.
It was clearly a different Hill than the one who only played in just two games, plus one series in a third, before opting out of his senior season last fall. Hill admitted as much.
"The whole experience of being away, I feel like I've matured way more," Hill said. "I'm a better person all around."
Hill said he checked all the boxes scouts and coaches came for. There's no doubt the running back from Columbus has the physical tools to contribute on an NFL roster. He's got enough of a body of work to prove it, too.
Hill led the SEC in rushing yards with 1,350 as a junior in 2019. At 5-foot-11, 215 pounds he has enough muscle on his frame to fight off NFL defenders. He believes so, anyway. Nevertheless, Hill has countless clips of him throwing SEC defenders to the ground with ease to back himself up.
"That's just how I've been playing all my life," Hill said. "What I put into my game and how I step onto the field I just feel like whenever I run the ball nobody can stop me."
Like Hill said, he's been doing that since his youth days in Columbus. He carried it into high school and college. What's new for Hill is opening up to others off the field.
Hill said he feels like he can hold a conversation with anyone, which is much more than he could say even a few months ago. His social maturity will go a long way if he wishes to be a part of NFL locker rooms over the next decade.
Hill is only 22, but he believes he can provide a mature leadership perspective to any team that takes a chance on him. He was, after all, presented with the key to his hometown for the role he played in getting Mississippi to change its state flag last year.
Still, it wasn't easy for Hill to walk away from the game and Mississippi State last fall. He posted on social media in early November that his brother had brain surgery and his brother and mother both got sick with COVID-19. There was too much weighing on his mind to continue playing football at the time.
With more of a sense of normalcy now, the new Hill is ready to get back after it at the highest level.
"My trainer tells me all the time, 'We're fixing to wake some people up,'" Hill said. "Everybody was high on me before I opted out, but I feel like people forgot. So my job today was to basically come here and just show people that I'm still here and inform them that I'm still the same player, even better at certain things. I feel like I did that."
Contact Tyler Horka at thorka@gannett.com. Follow @tbhorka on Twitter. To read more of Tyler's work, subscribe to the Clarion Ledger today!