Can Anthony Hill replace DeMarvion Overshown?
One of Texas’ clearest challenges in 2023 will be to fill a position on defense which has been manned for three years by the same player, DeMarvion Overshown.
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The 2022 season was the first time Overshown really put it all together as a linebacker. The converted safety had a very difficult time in 2020 and 2021 after offseasons shortened by COVID and his own injuries limited his ability to master the new position or reshape his body for the role. DMO was finally healthy for the offseason before 2022, gained some weight, and was second on the team in tackles with 96, tied for first on the team (Jaylan Ford) in tackles for loss with 10, and second on the team in sacks with four.
It was quite a bit of production which will be tricky for the Longhorns to replace. One of the primary candidates to get a shot?
“I’m most likely going to be in that D-Mo spot,” Hill said. “I think that’s most likely where they’re going to play me at, and I’m wearing No. 0.”
Anthony Hill on his role at Texas.
Freshman early enrollee Anthony Hill, a player few would describe as being particularly similar to Overshown. Whereas Overshown was 6-foot-4, 217 pounds and was heralded as a rangy and hard-hitting safety coming out of high school, Hill is 6-foot-2, 228 pounds and has a reputation as more of a traditional Mike linebacker beating blocks and stuffing runs in the box. So how does this work?
Mike vs Will linebacker
Texas, like most other teams, has a very simple system for aligning the Sam or Star (Star is the nickel), the Mike, and the Will in their defense. The Sam/Star aligns to the wide side of the field, the Mike is in the middle, and the Will aligns to the boundary side of the field.
As you can see against Washington:
On bottom is Star Jahdae Barron (#23), then Mike Jett Bush (#43), then Will Diamonte Tucker-Dorsey (#2).
And if the offense puts their slot in the boundary?
Still the same. The Will aligns to the boundary and gets a little wider to help cover the slot. The Star gets closer to the box like a true linebacker.
If the offense aligns in a trips formation with three receivers to the wide side of the field?
Star Jahdae Barron is on bottom, then Mike Jaylan Ford, then Will Tucker-Dorsey, and now boundary cornerback Ryan Watts is in the box on top of your screen.
So what’s the difference between Mike and Will? In a predominantly two-high defense like Texas runs the Mike is actually more likely to end up covering a lot of space than the Will. The boundary safety tends to be pretty tight and can help the Will when there’s a slot in the boundary but the Mike is routinely forced to cover some ground to the other hash mark.
Interestingly enough, while Overshown is probably a superior player in man coverage, Ford was unquestionably better at dropping backwards into zone and vindicated his positioning as the wider player with a team leading four interceptions. It wasn’t the converted safety who handled the tough coverage assignments but Ford.
The coverage assignments really make all the difference. Texas’ D-line will shift the tackles in front of them so neither Mike nor Will can count on consistently being aligned behind a nose or 3-technique. The differences between the positions in run defense are mostly negligible, the real differences are in who has to cover what and which player ends up in more space.
Anthony Hill at Denton Ryan
For all the reasons above, Anthony Hill often played Will linebacker at Denton Ryan. In fact, he played both Mike and Will and Ryan would position him at whichever inside linebacker position in their 4-2-5 defense would be aligned in the box while the other kid would get any assignments which would lead out into space. So the few offensive alignments which could get the Will in more space than the Mike would see Hill trade alignments with the other linebacker so he could stay in the box.
The reason for this was simple. Hill is a highly experienced inside linebacker and an explosive player…when moving downhill. As Will Muschamp said of Sergio Kindle when moving him to Buck back in 2008, “thoroughbreds don’t go backwards.” Hill can shuffle sideways easily enough as he reads blocks to find his gap but his specialty is exploding and closing in a straight line. Not changing direction, shuffling, or backpedaling.
So he stayed in the box, and when it was an obvious passing down like 3rd-and-7, they’d blitz him through an interior gap or play him directly on the edge.
Essentially they used him like Texas used Overshown in 2022.
This is actually how Todd Orlando wanted to use the Will linebacker, or “Rover” in his terminology, within his defense. Against a majority of formations, the linebacker position best positioned to stay in the box and be free from getting dragged out into space is the Will. Texas had issues in 2018 and 2019 under Orlando because he prioritized getting getting his best athlete at Will to make his pass-rush better, to the detriment of having a mobile defender to hold up in coverage at Mike.
Pete Kwiatkowski’s defense is actually related to Orlando’s but his Washington units had the more sensible division. He’d use the more rangy players, like Ben Burr-Kirven, at Mike while the bigger, plugging and blitzing linebacker played at Will (he called them Dimebackers).
Hill is exactly the sort of Will linebacker you want in modern college defense. Theoretically his athleticism might translate to playing coverage but it’d mostly be a waste of time to develop him there when he’s so explosive and violent playing in the box. His future might take him even closer to the ball at Buck linebacker, but he has a chance to stay off the ball at Will where he could focus mostly on playing the run and impacting the pass with his ability to get after the quarterback.
Can this work immediately in 2023?
It’s going to be very hard for a freshman linebacker to match 96 tackles, 10 tackles for loss, and four sacks. However, Texas isn’t only seeking to replace their starting Will. The starting Buck Ovie Oghoufo just entered the transfer portal and the Buck and Will often work together in this defense since they both align to the boundary.
Oghoufo’s stats were more modest, 53 tackles, 7.5 tackles for loss, and 1.5 sacks. He developed as a run defender in his time in Austin but never managed to make much of his positioning to stop the pass either with his edge-rushing, his stunts, or his coverage drops which were routinely too shallow and unaware. Texas mostly settled for getting competent play at Buck where ideally it’d be one of the main play-making roles, stacking up negative plays.
The opportunity then for Texas is to try and use spring enrollment by Hill to get him ready to play early but then take advantage of the chance to play a more disruptive Buck so that DMO’s replacement doesn’t have to match all of the departing production in order for the defense to maintain or even improve upon their 2022 play.
In the long-term, Hill’s length, explosiveness, and physicality is going to pay off for Texas at one or another of their linebacker positions. In 2023 they can deploy him at Will, protect him from some of the harder parts of college linebacking, and look elsewhere for big time playmaking.
