Alabama running back feels ‘way faster’ after dropping weight

Alabama Running Back Daniel Hill (4) during Practice at Thomas-Drew Practice Fields in Tuscaloosa, AL on Thursday, Mar 26, 2026. - Photo via Alabama Athletics

Alabama football’s third-year running back and Mississippi native Daniel Hill is reaping the benefits of dropping some weight this spring.

Hill is eight pounds lighter this spring than he was on the Crimson Tide’s 2025 football roster.

Alabama’s offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb said Hill went from ‘hovering’ around 250 pounds last year to being around 230, hinting at an approximate 20-pound weight loss. This change led Hill to tell reporters Monday that he is feeling faster this spring.

“I feel good,” Hill said. “I feel way faster. My body feels better, like all the little nack injuries, things like that. I’m not having those anymore. Just, I just feel better as a whole.”

Hill said his weight loss is a result of him changing his eating and training habits.

“I just had to just go back and see what I was doing wrong,” Hill told reporters. “I had to change the way I was eating, cardio more, and that’s really it. And just keep working at that. That’s something that I felt like I needed to change. The coaches felt like I needed to change, and I made a commitment to myself to get my weight down.”

Junk food was something Hill had to remove from his diet.

“I wasn’t eating a lot of junk food, but it was just here and there,” Hill said. “I had to cut that out.”

The former four-star rushed for 284 yards and six touchdowns on 75 carries during the 2025 season. Kalen DeBoer recently said he felt Hill’s production last season was impacted by the lack of a true offseason.

“Daniel’s (Hill) been consistent,” DeBoer said after Alabama’s first scrimmage. “I think he’s taken advantage of just kind of having an offseason to lean up. A year ago, really from the previous ’24 season, was still dinged up, had to have surgery. We knew it during spring ball, had to have it after. I think that really went into him not having the offseason he’d probably like and the season that he knows he can improve on and be better than.”

Hill is expected to be a leader at running back for the Tide.