{"id":218767,"date":"2026-03-24T22:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T22:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/218767\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T22:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T22:40:12","slug":"coach-texas-lb-anthony-hill-jr-have-dinner-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/218767\/","title":{"rendered":"Coach, Texas LB Anthony Hill Jr. have dinner together"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, a match between the former Longhorns\u2019 middle linebacker and a hometown kid from the Metroplex seems like a match made on, well, NFL draft day, right? Especially after Hill and Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer had dinner in Austin the night before Tuesday\u2019s Texas pro day at the Denius Fields indoor facility?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, I’m a Dallas kid, so it’d be nice to go play for the Cowboys,\u201d said Hill, who grew up 30 miles north of Dallas in Denton. \u201cI wouldn’t have to go too far, so it’ll be nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

And how was that dinner with the second-year Cowboys coach, who attended the Longhorns\u2019 pro day?<\/p>\n

\u201cI get told where to go, and I\u2019ve just got to be there,\u201d Hill said with a grin. \u201cI didn’t get to pick nothing. It was a good conversation, though. We had some laughs and talked some football.\u201d<\/p>\n

Specifically, the Cowboys need to talk defense during the 2026 NFL draft\u00a0<\/a> April 23-25 in Pittsburgh. Dallas has eight selections, including two in the first round at Nos. 12 and 20 as well as an extra third-round pick from a trade. Expect most of that draft capital to be spent on defense after the Cowboys finished 30th in total defense out of 32 teams and last in pass defense in 2025.<\/p>\n

Hill currently\u00a0projects as a second-round pick<\/a> by ESPN, and ESPN draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. ranks him as the third best off-ball linebacker in the draft. The Cowboys don\u2019t have a second-round pick this year.<\/p>\n

Dallas will switch to a 3-4 base defensive formation after the hiring of new coordinator Christian Parker, and the 6-foot-2, 238-pound Hill seems like a natural fit as an inside linebacker who can also line up on the edge and attack the quarterback. The Cowboys need linebackers; former Texas linebacker DeMarvion Overshown is the only Dallas linebacker that flashes star power, but he has struggled to stay healthy since joining the Cowboys as a third-round pick in 2023.<\/p>\n

Hill said he\u2019d embrace an opportunity to play alongside Overshown, but there\u2019s a major problem: Both wear the same jersey numbers, and Overshown has already claimed the moniker Agent Zero.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can’t be two zeros, so I know that I would have to get a new number, but, man, it’ll be a blessing to play with him,\u201d Hill said. \u201cI’ve been watching him my whole life, so it’d be really cool playing with him, just learning from him, and kind of modeling my game after him as I’ve been doing at Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So, a match between the former Longhorns\u2019 middle linebacker and a hometown kid from the Metroplex seems like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21872,32529,7581,261,113,27,29,537,536,28],"class_list":["post-218767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-2026-nfl-draft","tag-anthony-hill-jr","tag-brian-schottenheimer","tag-college-football","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-longhorns","tag-texas-longhorns-football","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}