Justice Hill is back, bulked — and better?
STILLWATER — Justice Hill positioned himself with a seriousness beneath the bar, which featured five hefty Olympic weights circling each end.
And it looked every bit like a mismatch, the 5-foot-10 and 194pound Hill contrasted against all those thick plates, which totaled almost three times the Cowboy running back’s weight at 565 pounds.
Except Hill took it all on with video rolling, first hoisting the bar behind his head and onto his shoulders, then squatting to his knees and back upright again, bar bending amid the weight.
And with that one impressive show of strength, shared via Twitter by Oklahoma State’s strength staff, Hill pronounced himself as back and fully healthy from offseason shoulder surgery.
Back and perhaps better than ever.
“I got set back a little bit with the surgery,” said Hill, who missed the entirety of spring drills, “but I came back late in April and went hard all summer.
“So now I’m back, definitely 100 percent. And I’ve been surpassing my numbers from last year.”
Unlike a year ago, when
uncertainty surrounded a crowded backfield scenario before Hill eventually seized the job as a rookie, the only tailback competition now is for the backup role providing a complement to OSU’s first freshman 1,000yard rusher.
Hill emerged as a godsend for the 2016 Cowboys, boosting what had been a pedestrian run game with his combination of speed and vision and instincts. He ran for 1,142 yards, averaging 5.5 per carry, leading all FBS freshmen and earning Freshman All-American honors.
He’s emerging again, this time with a new number, switching from 27 to 5, and featuring an enhanced body that packs an additional 14 pounds in all the right places, highlighted by newly ripped arms and upper body. The added bulk should help Hill as a pass blocker, making it easier to keep him on the field in third-down situations.
“Rob Glass came through again,” Cowboys coach Mike Gundy said of the work of his strength and conditioning specialist. “(Hill’s) also dropped his body fat. He looks good.
“It’s exciting to see.” Hill’s surgery was minor, little more than a cleanup procedure to address an old injury from Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa. So while he might have missed being on the field in the spring, Hill didn’t miss the chance to improve.
“Coach Glass, I worked with him all spring, even though I wasn’t cleared to play football,” Hill said. “I was running, doing a whole bunch of different things. He made sure I was going to be in tiptop shape coming into the fall.”
New Cowboys running backs coach John Wozniak is catching up on what he’s got in Hill, enjoying the live look after previously relying on game tapes from last season.
What impressed Wozniak most in his review?
“The moment wasn’t too big,” he said. “Justice never seemed to me — and I didn’t see it in person — but he doesn’t seem to be a guy who had the deer-in-the-headlights look, like a lot of freshmen can have. He just goes out and plays.
“And then, he’s able to let his natural instinct take over.
“There’s things at the running back position that you can’t coach. A guy’s just got to figure it out and go. And he does that. He knows when to be aggressive. He knows when to cut laterally or cut vertically. He’s a good player.”
And he’s back, and perhaps better than ever.