Kylin Hill was stood up at the 1-yard line by Kentucky defensive end Calvin Taylor Jr.

All the Mississippi State tailback needed on that play was 1 more yard. The 25 carries he received before that one went for 119 yards to boost his SEC rushing lead, but 1 more yard was needed to put Kentucky away and get off to a 1-0 start in SEC play. The zone-read handoff from Garrett Shrader meant that it was Hill’s responsibility to get his toughest yard of the day.

With Taylor draped all over him, that’s exactly what Hill did. The guy who squat reps 500-plus pounds churned his legs for that final yard like the season depended on it, and he stretched the ball across the goal line. Carry No. 26 went for 6. It was Hill’s 3rd rushing touchdown of the day — something that hadn’t happened at MSU in 9 years prior to Saturday — and more important, it put the game on ice.

Needless to say, Joe Moorhead appreciated that yard more than any other that Hill picked up on that day. Once he got over to the sidelines, TV cameras caught Moorhead putting his hands on the sides of Hill’s helmet, and giving him the ultimate “atta boy.”

“Paraphrasing,” Moorhead said, “I said, ‘That’s how an All-American player plays.’”

That moment summed up the day — and really the season so far — for Hill in Moorhead’s system.

In addition to leading the SEC in rushing by a whopping 143 yards, the junior ranks 1st among all FBS players with 23 plays of 10-plus yards. That’s from someone who doesn’t have a play longer than 22 yards, too. He leads in the SEC with 27 missed tackles forced (via Pro Football Focus), and he’s the only FBS player with 4 games of 100 rushing yards to start the season.

“I had a ton of respect for (Hill) going into the game and then coming out of it, that much more,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said 4 days after facing Hill for the second time. “He’s a very, very difficult guy to tackle. He’s got everything you’re looking for. Very good vision, very strong, breaks tackles and has a toughness about him to get a lot of difficult yards. Very, very good player.”

Moorhead agrees.

“He’s doing a hell of a job,” Moorhead said, “and we’ve gotta keep him rolling.”

Moorhead joked that they were going to keep Hill in a hyperbaric chamber to keep him healthy. A midseason leg injury last year slowed down Hill’s breakout campaign (he was PFF’s No. 2 rated SEC running back midway through the 2018 season). Moorhead sees the value in having Hill play the Saquon Barkley role in his offense.

Hill, who admittedly watches “too many” highlights of Barkley, is doing the things that made the former Penn State star a household name in Moorhead’s offense. Whether that’s breaking tackles (and ankles), getting 20-plus touches, catching passes like a slot receiver or hurdling from the 4-yard line to get into the end zone, Hill’s Barkley imitation is pretty spot on … especially the hurdling into the end zone part.

Watching running backs elevate to new heights is nothing new for Moorhead. The success of tailbacks in Moorhead’s system predates Barkley and Hill. It’s always been rooted in the former quarterback’s offensive beliefs.

“I think the productivity, the efficiency and explosiveness of the offense runs through the tailback position,” Moorhead said. “Historically, at Penn State, at Fordham, at UConn, even going back to Akron with (Dennis Kennedy), we’ve had a player of the year, an all-conference running back or guys who have broken school records at just about every place.”

When Moorhead was the head coach at Fordham, tailback Chase Edmonds was the Jerry Rice Award winner in 2014 (top FCS freshman), and he was second-team FCS All-American as a sophomore in his last year with Moorhead in 2015. In Moorhead’s 4 years at Fordham and 2 as the offensive coordinator at Penn State, his feature back had a minimum of 268 touches and 1,738 yards from scrimmage each of those 6 years.

That streak ended in 2018 for a couple reasons. For starters, Hill’s nagging mid-season leg injury came right as he was settling into the offense. It also didn’t help that with the all-time leading rusher among SEC quarterbacks, Nick Fitzgerald, the workload for the feature back was reduced.

Through 4 games in 2019, Hill is just 27 carries away from surpassing his 2018 total.

“I knew in high school that he was gonna be a special football player. The only thing he needed was the opportunity. Over the last couple years, I don’t think he’s gotten the amount of carries that he’s wanted so he’s gotten a little frustrated in his first and second year,” said Randal Montgomery, who coached Hill at Columbus High School (Miss.) a half hour from Starkville. “But I think with Joe Moorhead, he’s kinda realizing how special he is.” 

Hill hasn’t had this kind of workload since his days as the do-it-all man in Montgomery’s spread system at Columbus. He’d line up in the backfield, in the slot or even as a Wildcat quarterback sometimes. The goal was to get him 20 touches a game, any way possible. Montgomery said Hill also became the team’s best receiver (he averaged 20 yards per catch on 14 receptions as a senior).

Even with that workload, Hill was a rhythm guy who played his best in the 4th quarter. Like, the type of guy who still had enough juice in the final minute of a game to reach across the goal line with a 310-pound defensive lineman on his back.

But despite his versatile skill set, the recruiting process was a mixed bag of sorts for the 4-star running back. The in-state SEC schools offered Hill after his sophomore year — MSU was the only official visit he took — while Alabama and a few others showed some interest later in his career. Not everyone was convinced he was capable of excelling at the SEC level.

“LSU actually said he was too slow, believe that or not,” Montgomery said. “They said he didn’t think he was fast enough.”

It might have made a difference for Hill, who grew up a Mississippi State fan. He ultimately signed to play for Dan Mullen’s program.

The only problem? Mullen left Starkville at the end of Hill’s freshman season. The offensive mind who Hill watched build up the program left for Florida, and Hill had a decision to make about his future. But apparently that wasn’t much of a decision at all.

“Coach Mullen leaving, I don’t think that played any factor in his decision-making to leave or anything like that … I don’t think he ever had those thoughts. If he did, he never expressed them to me,” Montgomery said. “He was really excited about the opportunity to go out there again in his sophomore year. He was a Mississippi State guy and he was going to be there regardless.”

That couldn’t have worked out better for Moorhead. And well, f0r Hill, too. From the start of the 2018 season, they were in sync like they had known each other for years. When Hill would score a touchdown — he had 5 in the first 2 games — Moorhead would wait for him to get to the sidelines and lob him an alley-oop, which he proceeded to slam home on an imaginary hoop. They clicked.

“(Moorhead) seems to be a player’s coach. He talks their language in certain aspects. I think Kylin enjoys playing for him because he is like that,” Montgomery said. “I think they really mesh well together just because Joe is such a personable guy and he just does a good job of coaching him. He’s a genuine guy.

“You’re seeing what you get when you talk about Joe Moorhead. That’s why Kylin really enjoys playing for him.”

In order to do that in Moorhead’s system, Hill actually tweaked his initial freshman year philosophy of putting on weight to get to roughly 220 pounds. That was done with the intent of being able to handle feature back work in the SEC, but Montgomery said putting on that weight might have actually been at the root of Hill’s injury issues early in his career. Hill has since slimmed down to around the 210-212 pound range.

And yeah, you wouldn’t know that he’s any lighter based on his weight room feats:

Not surprisingly, Hill earned a spot on Bruce Feldman’s preseason “Freaks” list. You can see his 600-pound max squat on display getting tough goal line yardage, and you can see his 35-inch vertical on display with his Barkley-esque hurdles.

Soon, perhaps, you’ll see that talent on Sundays instead of Saturdays. In today’s pass-heavy NFL, Hill’s skill set certainly translates to the next level.

In the meantime, though, Hill has more work to do in Moorhead’s system.

He’d like to be a driving force behind an offensive turnaround following a frustrating, inconsistent Year 1 of Moorhead’s offense in Starkville. Hill put the cap on a 1-0 start to SEC play, but clinching the program’s second winning season against the conference in the 21st century would mean more to him. And while it’s only been 4 games, Hill’s current 13-game pace would surpass MSU’s single-season rushing record by 400 yards.

“The sky is the limit with the guy, honestly,” Montgomery said. “There’s really nothing on the football field that makes him panic.”

Hill staying on the football field and continuing his torrid pace, well, that’d be enough to make SEC defenses panic.