Michigan Football: Daxton Hill is going to make an immediate impact

Michigan football got Daxton Hill back in the fold Wednesday after he flipped back from Alabama. Here’s why his impact will be felt immediately.

From a Michigan football perspective, it’s hard to see how early national signing day could have gone any better. Yes, the Wolverines missed out on Zach Harrison but flipping Daxton Hill back from Alabama more than made up for it.

To put it simply, Hill is an elite recruit. Not only is he a five-star safety, which ranked No. 8 in the 2019 recruiting class, he also runs the 40 in 4.3 and has first-round pick written all over him. Outside of Harrison, he’s also the top incoming recruit in the Big Ten.

After a rough recruiting cycle in 2018 and an even rougher finish to the season, it was hard to know how the early signing period was going to play out for Michigan football. As late as Tuesday, there seemed to be a lot of doom and gloom.

Everyone knew Harrison was trending towards Ohio State, while the lack of movement by Hill was starting to get discouraging. Then, Jordan Battle went to Alabama, which was a key domino. Not five minutes after, Hill had officially signed with the Wolverines in a game-changing move for Jim Harbaugh and company.

Harbaugh may have lost the battle against Ryan Day for Harrison, but flipping Hill back shows that he is more than capable of winning this war because make no mistake, if the Wolverines are going to beat the Buckeyes and do it consistently, there will need to be more Daxton Hill’s.

But that’s a topic for another day. In terms of what adding Hill means for Michigan on the field, well, it’s going to be huge.

It’s not every day that you find 6-foot-1 safeties who can run 4.3, tackle and play the ball. Hill can do all of those things and he can do them all exceptionally well. He will also add an element of athleticism on the back end that frankly hasn’t been there since Jabrill Peppers.

Don’t get me wrong, Michigan football has been great on defense. Josh Metellus and Tyree Kinnel have played very well the past two seasons, but in the Ohio State game, those guys, along with the rest of the secondary got exposed.

Certainly, Ohio State had a good game plan going in, however, the Wolverines got beat by simple plays over and over again. Ohio State beat them on crossing routes all day and then just used their speed to get huge chunks of yards and while UM has some nice players, not even David Long or Lavert Hill are speed demons.

But Hill’s game is based on speed and he is also not afraid to tackle. He finished with more than 200 during his high school career. More impressively, he has shown a knack for the ball. He picked off five passes as a junior and two more as a senior. On top of that, he scored eight career touchdowns on offense as a wide receiver.

With Kinnel leaving, there is a starting spot open next to Metellus next season and at this point, I don’t see any reason that job won’t belong to Hill by the start of the 2019 season. Even if he doesn’t start, he will play a lot and with his speed, he will make an impact right away.