At the end of his official visit Sunday, Shaun Hill committed to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga before heading home to Bethlehem, Ga. The Apalachee High School senior will be back in January.
Hill, a 6-foot-3, 255-pound offensive lineman, will graduate this month and enroll at UTC for spring semester. Early enrollees are common at the bowl subdivision level, but are rare in the FCS.
“I’m going to graduate early and be a Moc, and then come back here and walk with my class in May,” said Hill, a first-team all-state offensive lineman last season. “I’m just going to get a little jump start on my life.”
Because he’s enrolling early, Hill can sign scholarship papers right away. Along with beginning school in January, Hill will be able to work out with the team and go through spring practice.
“It’s almost like I was just a redshirt [this season], honestly,” he said.
Hill has been one of the anchors of Apalachee’s Wing-T rushing attack the past few seasons and was the Touchdown Club of Atlanta’s lineman of the week in September.
The Wildcats went 6-4 with a young team, coming a win short of the playoffs after winning a Region 8-AAAA championship in 2009.
When Hill arrived in Chattanooga on Friday, he hadn’t planned on committing to UTC before he left town. He said he enjoyed the trip and liked UTC, the coaches and players so much that by Sunday his decision was made.
“After I got there and saw everything, I just knew that was the place I wanted to be,” he said.
Hill’s commitment is the fourth the Mocs have received in the past week, joining Calhoun High School running back Dustin Christian and the Alcoa pair of running back/defensive end Darrell Warren and fullback Taharin Tyson.
During the season, UTC also got commitments from Baylor’s Jacob Huesman and McCallie’s Jarrod Coleman.
Hill could be joined at UTC before fellow Apalachee offensive lineman Nathan Holton, who committed to UTC this summer but hasn’t yet qualified for admission.
Contact John Frierson at jfrierson@timesfreepress.com or (423) 757-6268. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/mocsbeatCTFP.