FOREST PARK, Ohio — Winton Woods senior linebacker and edge rusher Justin Hill asserting that he is given a verbal dedication to Alabama.
Hill, a four-star participant, made the much-anticipated announcement on his seventeenth birthday contained in the Winton Woods Excessive College gymnasium in entrance of household, associates and coaches.
“I am blessed, however I am type of simply taking all of it in,” Hill stated after his verbal dedication. “All these individuals man, that I like and love me, that got here out right here to see me. … They simply need the perfect for me.”
Hill instructed WCPO 9 that he made the choice Tuesday night time, and he referred to as Alabama exterior linebackers coach Christian Robinson along with his alternative.
“I actually made my thoughts up 100% final night time,” Hill stated. “It simply got here right down to me, , on my own in my room simply determining what is correct, what do I have to excel.”
Hill, rated Ohio’s No. 4 participant within the 2025 class by 247 Sports activities and the nation’s No. 7 edge rusher, narrowed his decisions to Alabama, Ohio State, Oregon and College of Southern California as his finalists. He took official visits to the 4 packages in June.
The 6-foot-3, 235-pound Hill has impressed faculty coaches all through a recruiting journey that is earned him almost 30 scholarship affords since October 2021.
Hill, a Division II first-team all-state choice as a junior, mentioned with WCPO 9 Sportsthis spring how title, picture and likeness (NIL) impacted his recruiting journey.
“I simply really feel like I’ve tried to take all of it in and mature myself sufficient to have the ability to perceive any such stuff,” Hill stated this spring. “I perceive that happening visits and seeing the kind of folks that I am round, it is a enterprise. And it isn’t nothing you can be infantile with.”
Winton Woods, which earned an 8-4 report in 2023, opens the season at 2023 Division I state runner-up Springfield on Aug. 23.
Hill is ready to signal his Nationwide Letter of Intent Dec. 4.
It is not only a football-related future for Hill, who has a 3.7 grade-point common. He desires to main in mechanical or chemical engineering with a minor in actual property.
“Life after soccer is extra vital than this amount of cash that you will make these 4 years that you simply’re in faculty as a result of you possibly can go someplace and make a excessive lot of cash after which be a decrease spherical draft choose and do not make as a lot and never have the kind of diploma to help that,” Hill stated.
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