Hill's recruitment heating up as Buckeyes, Vols and Tide jump in

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Mon Mar 19 12:04:22 GMT-04:00 2012

The recruitment of 4-star defensive tackle Michael Hill Michael Hill

Defensive Tackle

6-3, 315

Pendleton, SC

View Full Profile of Pendleton (SC) continues to heat up, as he now boasts an even ten offers.

There would be more, but many schools believe Hill is destined to stay in state, something his head coach at Pendleton, Paul Sutherland, also believes might be the case.

“Clemson and South Carolina are both after him, and when it comes down to it I think it might still be an in-state battle,” Sutherland told TigerNet this weekend. “I could see both schools being in it right til the end, and I know they have as good of a shot as anybody else right now.”

That doesn’t mean that the other programs aren’t turning up the pressure, however.

“You can't push any harder than Chris Rumph at Alabama, Everett Withers at Ohio St. and Jay Graham at Tennessee,” he said. “I got out of church and had a text waiting from Ohio St. and coach Withers. Coach [Chad] Morris of Clemson, he and I were in contact on Friday, and Shawn Elliott of South Carolina has been just super.

“I told Michael that I didn’t think he could make a bad decision with what he had on the table. He has a lot of things on his plate right now. Some say stay close to home, and others tell him the best decision would be to go away. I told him I will take him back to South Carolina and Clemson this summer – that is my job to make sure he sees the state schools. After that, he will tell me where to go.”

Sutherland said that he also wants to make sure that Hill sees some of the other places that have offered, and is pushing his rising senior to narrow his list down by summer.

“He is still wide open at this point,” he said. “He and I meet and talk twice a week, and he realizes as we head into summer that he will need to narrow it down. He has visited Clemson, South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia Tech, and he needs to go three or four more places. He might go to Alabama, Florida, Ohio St. and Michigan, and once he does that we will begin to narrow things down. He has a lot more questions than he has answers right now.”

As a junior, he recorded 74 tackles, 25 tackles for loss, 10 sacks and four forced fumbles, and Sutherland said that Hill has dropped weight this spring while participating in track, getting down to 300 pounds from his earlier 315.