Todd Hill was completely enveloped in a mad rush at this time last year.
Now a graduate-student defensive end at Slippery Rock, the 2019 Steel Valley product wasn’t yet enrolled at the Butler County-based state university as a lynchpin of the NCAA Division II Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference perennial power football program’s defensive front seven.
Instead, Hill — who previously played three seasons at NCAA Division I FCS Duquesne before transferring for another year at Pitt — was out of college football altogether last December. He was spending his time helping to put the finishing touches on the holiday season while working as an Amazon driver delivering holiday packages.
“I used to have the Thomas Jefferson area,” Hill said. “It was definitely a nice little experience just seeing different outlooks on stuff. I learned a lot on that, too. I just have to stay down and keep going and don’t give up on yourself.
“I take football really serious,” he added. “I’ve been playing football since I was 4 years old. It just shows anything can happen in a year. You’ve got to keep going and just never doubt yourself.”
Now, Hill has helped put himself and his teammates in a position to deliver one last crucial package to the Rock — the first NCAA Division II national championship in school history.
No. 11 Slippery Rock (12-1) will travel to face No. 2 Ferris State (12-1) in an NCAA Division II semifinal contest at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Top Taggart Field in Big Rapids, Mich., with a spot in the national title game on the line.
It will be the fourth time the Super Region One champion Rock has appeared in the national semifinals. Ninth-year coach Shawn Lutz’s team last advanced to the semifinals in 2019 but lost to Minnesota State, 58-15.
“It’s definitely been a blessing because last year I wasn’t in this position,” said Hill, who won WPIAL championships in 2016 and 2018 and a PIAA title in 2016 at Steel Valley. “Last year, I was at home working and stuff like that and didn’t know if I was going to play football again. I look at everything as just keep going and put everything in God’s hands and just keep believing in myself and believing in my coaches and my teammates. Since I did that, everything has been good.
“It’s just a family vibe,” he added. “It’s hard not to excel and be great in this environment.”
Ferris State also knows a thing or two about excellence.
The Super Region Three champion Bulldogs are returning to the NCAA semifinal round for the sixth time in eight seasons and the first time since 2022 when they won the second of their consecutive NCAA championships.
Ferris State has qualified for the NCAA playoffs for 10 consecutive seasons, which is the longest active streak in the nation. Slippery Rock’s current national postseason streak of six seasons is the country’s second-longest active streak.
“They just beat the national champion last year in Harding, 41-7,” said Lutz of Ferris State’s victory in the Super Region Three championship game last weekend. “You can’t argue with their success. They’ve got a great team, and they’ve got talent everywhere.”
That begins with quarterback Trinidad Chambliss. The Bulldogs junior has thrown for 2,551 yards, completing 61% of his passes, with 22 touchdowns and just five interceptions.
Among the most dangerous dual-threat quarterbacks in the nation, Chambliss has also rushed for 817 yards and a team-high 20 touchdowns on 142 carries.
For his efforts, Chambliss was named one of eight finalists in the nation for the Harlon Hill Trophy, which is awarded annually to the top Division II player in the nation.
Slippery Rock quarterback Brayden Long is also a finalist for the award for the second straight season. He is the first player in Rock history to be a finalist for the award twice.
“We run a lot of plays in which he has to make reads post-snap, and those are the things that he’s done very, very well,” said Ferris State coach Tony Annese, now in his 12th season coaching the Bulldogs, of Chambliss. “We build our system around our quarterback every year, and we tweak it every year based upon what the capacity of that quarterback is, what his strengths are. We’ve felt really good about how he’s performed.”
Lutz, too, said he is impressed with the player at the helm of the Bulldogs’ run-pass option offensive attack.
Aside from making plays himself, Chambliss has also been adept at creating opportunities for his teammates in Ferris State’s high-powered offense.
The Bulldogs average 491.5 yards per game, which is good for third in the nation, while also scoring Division II’s second-best 44.5 points per outing.
Junior Emari O’Brien has a team-high 565 yards and four touchdowns, while senior James Gilbert has racked up 494 yards and four scores and Cam Underwood has chipped in 433 yards and five touchdowns in the Ferris State passing attack.
Junior running back Kannon Katzer is also dangerous in the Bulldogs’ rushing attack, averaging 8.6 yards per carry with 866 yards and 10 touchdowns.
“It is different, but if you just break it down and you just look at the plays, you’ve got to do your job,” said Lutz of Ferris State’s offense. “If you do your job and you’re responsible for doing your job it’s not that hard. The hard thing about it is you’ve got to be good enough to tackle these guys, too.”
And that’s where Hill comes in.
Last week, Hill was named one of eight finalists in the nation for the Gene Upshaw Division II Lineman of the Year award. He leads Slippery Rock’s defense with 76 tackles with 16½ tackles for a loss, 8½ sacks, 13 quarterback hurries and 1 safety.
Hill was particularly strong in the Rock’s Super Region One championship victory against California University of Pennsylvania last weekend, registering seven tackles, two for a loss, with two sacks, a forced fumble and fumble recovery.
“He’s dominant,” said Lutz of Hill, who was an all-Northeast Conference player three times at Duquesne. “He’s a difference maker. What people don’t realize is, he just doesn’t freelance out there, either. He does his job. He just can’t be blocked. He showed it in the Cal game again. He couldn’t be blocked, made those big plays, play after play.”
Like Chambliss, Hill has the propensity to make his teammates better.
Redshirt senior defensive lineman Munchie Johnson has recorded 64 tackles, 14 for a loss, with 3½ sacks, while fellow senior defensive lineman John Brown has also added 3½ sacks.
Senior linebacker Jacob Snow has also excelled for the Rock’s front seven with 54 tackles along with redshirt sophomore defensive lineman Trever Valenti, a Shenango product, who has 57 tackles, 4½ for a loss.
Slippery Rock’s success up front also bleeds to its defensive backfield with a variety of playmakers lurking with the intention of making gamebreaking plays.
Senior Eddie Faulkner IV — a Shady Side graduate and son of Steelers running backs coach Eddie Faulkner — is chief among them with 48 tackles, 6 for a loss, with 1½ sacks, 6 pass breakups, 2 forced fumbles and 2 fumble recoveries.
Senior defensive back Josh Stokes has 50 tackles with 15 pass breakups and three fumble recoveries, while redshirt junior Michael Henwood has added 66 tackles with three interceptions.
Defensive back Kanye Thompson, a McKeesport product, is also a standout sprinter on Slippery Rock’s track and field team. He, too, has the propensity to break a game open with his athleticism.
“We’ve just been focusing on ourselves and just focusing on the details, trying to just get ourselves together,” Hill said. “We’re not trying to make it seem like anybody is super superior from anybody. We just want to come together and play our type of football and believe in each other.”
Annese said his team will not be taking Slippery Rock lightly.
“We always have mad respect for an opponent,” he said. “Obviously, the Rock has had a great year, and so we’re cautiously confident. We truthfully have a lot of positive feelings come playoff time just because what we’ve been able to do in the past, but we also know that we have to perform every week and it’s survive and advance. If you slip up, it could end quick.”
Likewise, Hill said his teammates are focused on the opportunity to make history they have in front of them.
“It’s life-changing, for real,” he said. “No one counted us in this at all from the beginning, from when we first started. This is just something personal with us. We just keep carrying a chip on our shoulder. We are just going to keep proving guys wrong and show that Slippery Rock is an actual contender team.”
John is a copy editor and page designer at the Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at jsanta@unionprogress.com.