With both starting safeties from last year's BCS national championship team returning and on preseason All-Southeastern Conference teams, Will Hill's chances of expanding his role on defense in his second year at Florida seemed slim.
However, he has proven this fall that he has the ability to be the best safety on the team.
"He's been playing the best on defense - me and Brandon Spikes were talking about it," cornerback Joe Haden said.
It hasn't just been the two preseason All-Americans praising the sophomore safety.
UF coach Urban Meyer declared Hill a starter for the Gators.
That doesn't mean he has taken a job from returning starters Major Wright or Ahmad Black, who have missed practices due to injuries, allowing Hill more opportunities to impress the coaches.
The emergence of Hill as a "starter" has raised many questions about how time will be split between all three safeties on game days, but that isn't a concern of the coaches quite yet.
"There will be some point where we have to decide who gets the majority of the snaps, but we're not at that point yet," safeties coach Chuck Heater said.
To give themselves more options, the coaches have had all three players working at both safety spots.
Meyer considers all of them starters and plans to rotate them at safety this season because he doesn't want to have to use Hill at the nickelback too much again. Hill's progress since arriving last fall has made it hard to take him off the field, even if it has meant finding time for him at other spots.
At first, Hill struggled to adjust to the college football grind.
"Last year, he was going through the freshman transition of going through the heat, the pace, the tempo and the expectations of how to play a play," Heater said. "It was really a struggle for him, and it took a while for him to get a hold of it."
Hill said the toughest part was treating every practice like a game, because in high school he was able to just go through the motions.
Once he adjusted to the difficulty of the college game, he began to show his teammates and coaches why he was so highly recruited out of high school.
Hill was on numerous high school All-American teams, won New Jersey's Player of the Year award twice and was the highest-rated player at his position, according to Rivals.com.
As last season progressed, Hill's role expanded from special teams to the nickelback, and he finished sixth on the team in tackles with 48, including a team-high 22 special teams tackles.
Hill was able to shine even in his limited role, with his biggest performance coming against Kentucky when he finished with a team-high 11 tackles.
Not many could question his athletic ability or talent, but it has been the effort he has put in off the field that has made the biggest difference for him this year.
"I go in and watch extra film, watch the receivers every day and go out to practice and go 100 percent," Hill said.
