The lost season left him unknown and nearly unwanted.
B.J. Hill had rare athleticism and size. He was a high school running back and linebacker playing in a defensive lineman’s body.
But when he showed up at a North Carolina State football camp in 2013, he was practically a mystery, a player without pedigree or a single Power Five offer.
Hill had dislocated his knee at West Stanly High School as a junior, a crucial year for recruiting. And he hailed from tiny Oakboro, N.C. — population 1,900 — an old railroad town in the center of the state, off the beaten path of college recruiters.