FAYETTEVILLE — After months of speculation, it’s official: Justice Hill is at least going to try to play football.
Arkansas’ lone basketball signee for 2019, Hill was also a standout football player who had a scholarship offer from Auburn and helped Little Rock Christian knock off Hudson Henry and Pulaski Academy in the Arkansas Class 5A state championship game.
Instead of playing his senior season in basketball, he opted to enroll early and has been practicing with the Razorbacks' basketball team as a redshirt. That hasn’t stopped fans from wondering if he’d give football a shot at the next level, though.
Head coach Chad Morris ended that speculation when he revealed Monday that Hill would join the team for part of the spring. He said it would probably be after spring break when he started practicing.
Now the question is what position he will play because he did a little bit of everything for the Warriors. As a senior, he completed 208 of 291 passes (71.5 percent) for 3,084 yards, 37 touchdowns and only four interceptions, while also adding 1,000 yards and 21 scores on 112 carries.
He was the MVP of the state championship game and was also named the Gatorade Player of the Year for Arkansas and won the Landers Award for 2018.
“I've met with him, talked with him and it'll be at the position that he feels and that we both feel he can contribute,” Morris said. “I’ve left it up to him, whether it's corner, wide receiver, quarterback, running back, whatever it may be, we know he's an athlete that's had a lot of success and won a state championship and any time you can have a guy on your team like that, we're excited about.”
By NCAA rule, if he actually plays football for the Razorbacks, Hill would have to occupy on of the football team’s 85 scholarships and use up one of the four remaining scholarships for the 2019 class. That would also free up a basketball scholarship.
However, it appears that this is sort of a trial period for him and no scholarship decisions have to be made at this time, according to Morris. How his time would be divided between the sports is still up the air, with conversations between Morris and basketball coach Mike Anderson likely to happen after the season.
“We're going to wait until everything is over with and get together on that,” Morris said. “I know Justice and them and Coach Anderson, they've talked a little bit and we're going to kind of wait until after the season.”
Unlike the situation with quarterback/right-handed pitcher Connor Noland, in which all parties - Morris, baseball coach Dave Van Horn and Noland - have been very open about their plans for quite some time, this three-way relationship seems to still be developing.
When asked about it in a Feb. 14 press conference, Anderson said he had no knowledge of conversations between Hill and the football coaches.
“He’s just been practicing with us right now,” Anderson said. “He hasn’t said anything to me about football.”
Eleven days later, Morris announced that Hill was, in fact, going to join the team for spring practice.
Hill has been on the bench in street clothes for Arkansas’ basketball games this semester. The Razorbacks’ final regular-season game is March 13, with the SEC Tournament the following week.
Arkansas’ football team is off for spring break from March 14-24, with the first practice Hill would be able to make being March 26. That would give him six practices before the spring game on April 6.
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