FORT COLLINS — The lane was open, so he made his move.
When Collin Hill planted on the basketball court to go up to take his shot, it happened.
There was the plant, a little bit of a nudge from a player, nothing major or intentional, just a little contact.
Then the pop.
“I just stopped, and I kinda gimped off hoping it’s not going to be bad,” Hill said.
He knows he was in a bit of shock, and so were his Colorado State teammates who were on the court with him.
“Everyone else just like, froze. It was like time stood still for a little bit. Everyone was kind of in a panic,” running back Izzy Matthews said. “It was one of those surreal moments. Like, did that actually just happen? We’re trying to figure out, hopefully it’s an ankle, hopefully it’s nothing serious, like he just rolled it. I didn’t see him when he came back.
“It was one of those surreal moments that you’re not prepared for.”
The quarterback of the future at Colorado State certainly wasn’t, not to tear the ACL in his left knee again, the same injury that ended his true freshman season after five games played, the final three of them starts. After that injury, on a scramble against Utah State, he had taken the long rehabilitation road to come back.
Head coach Mike Bobo said Hill was probably ready for action around the fourth or fifth week of last season, but by that time, the team already had plans firmly in place to redshirt him. Nick Stevens was on his way to an all-conference season, and the result was the team would get an extra year of Hill.
The program wasn’t prepared, at least not initially. Hill, who completed 75 of his 129 passes for 1,095 yards, eight touchdowns and two interceptions, was the guy they were counting on to take over the offense. A smooth transition.
Instead, in a year when the Rams missed on signing a high school quarterback, they were on the lookout for a quarterback who could fill an immediate need with no playing experience at the position on the roster. The end result was landing K.J. Carta-Samuels, a graduate transfer from Washington who has thrown 47 career passes.
Hill’s injury was a blow on multiple levels. It was the loss of a player being heavily counted upon, but it cut deeper than that for his teammates.
As Matthews put it, if the Rams’ hopes rode solely on Hill’s right arm, they were in trouble anyway. No, it was the person Hill is that made the hurt go deeper.
“I’ve never seen somebody who loves the game of football more, who has their head on right. You talk to everyone, they’ll literally tell you Collin is the perfect human being,” Matthews said. “I think that’s the best way to put it. The dude just amazes you in everything that he does. It wouldn’t surprise me if August, September rolls back around and No. 15 is out there.
“He’s just a good person, one of those people everyone wants their daughter to date.”
Yet after understandably being down initially, Hill is back in fighting mode.
“He’s adamant he’s going to get back and give everything he’s got in the training room. He actually had a strength test (this week) and said he was ahead of schedule,” Bobo said on Wednesday. “The thing we’ve got to keep talking about is we can only do so much that the knee can allow. If the knee can take it, and the doctors allow it, then we’re going to press forward and train extremely hard to get him back.
“He’s focused, he’s in a good place, he’s not feeling sorry for himself. He knows he’s got a long road ahead of him.”
The strength Hill is trying to build back in his injured knee he already possesses in his faith, and he said there’s no question it has been a big part in helping him get through the mental scars some would have already gathered.
In no time, he was reciting the Bible verse Jeremiah 29:11, giving Hill the comfort in knowing there is a plan in place for him, whether he understands it or not at any given moment.
“It’s 100 percent. That’s something … I’m trying not to get emotional. Last time was really tough. It’s kind of different,” Hill said. “I tasted the field as a freshman, had a little bit of success, then it was kind of taken away. This time, you kinda wait your turn, it’s kind of like my time. That’s not to say it still isn’t my time, but it definitely hurt. I know God has a plan, and I know whatever is happening, there is a bigger purpose for this.”
“I know he has a plan, but that doesn’t make it necessarily any easier. It’s still definitely hard to go through, but it does give you hope. It’s just another reminder football can’t be everything. You can’t have your identity wrapped up in all that stuff.”
Hill has complete trust in another plan, the one head athletic trainer Tony Hill has for the rehabilitation process. The player knows how hard it will be, and in some ways, he feels it will make it easier for him to make it through the second time around. Hill knows what he didn’t trust last time, he can now, and it’s giving him confidence.
He has told Bobo he will be back in time for the start of the season, with Bobo saying the most optimistic outlook is 5 ½ months. He was injured in early October of 2016, and both coach and player admit it was a year before both of them felt he was ready for game action.
To think he can cut that timeline in half seems extremely ambitious, but it is by no means deterring Hill.
“That’s my goal. I love the plan they put together, and I promise you I’m going to work my tail off,” Hill said. “That’s what I told coach when he called. You won’t find anybody that’s going to work harder, I promise you that.
“There’s a lot of other factors that go into it, how my body responds to certain things, biologically how it goes. That’s my goal, and right now, it’s really hard not to look down the road and be like, ‘OK, we need to do this here, here and here.’ At the end of the day, I necessarily can’t control what happens, how it’s healing. I can control how many reps I do and all that stuff, but I’m just trying to take it one day at a time and control the things I can control.”
One shot was taken away from him. Now Hill is focused on it not costing him another.
