A new team — and a new journey — for Nikhai Hill-Green as Charlotte football hosts Navy

It’s homecoming weekend in the Queen City, and the Charlotte 49ers are hosting their first-ever American Athletic Conference game against Navy on Saturday in a bid to keep their bowl eligibility hopes afloat.

It’s been nearly a month since the 49ers’ last home game. With an extra week of rest and preparation for Navy’s triple-option offense, head coach Biff Poggi and the 49ers have a renewed sense of optimism with a sold-out crowd entering Jerry Richardson Stadium on Saturday.

“It’s great to be back home. It’s a great environment here, and I would imagine it will be standing room only for the Naval Academy,” Poggi said. “I’ll just say this — two o’clock on Saturday, October, fall, in the United States of America. Where else would you rather be? In the first American Conference game ever played in this stadium. It’s going to be great.”

In the midst of a four-game skid Charlotte (1-4, 0-1 AAC) continues to hang its hat on the defensive side of the ball, led by team captains and Michigan transfers Eyabi Okie-Anoma and Nikhai Hill-Green, the latter named to the National Comeback Player of the Year Award watch list.

New team, new journey

Hill-Green’s return to the field came on Sept. 2 in Charlotte’s season opener — and in its first season in the AAC — making his first appearance since the conclusion of the 2021 season in Ann Arbor, where he played in all 14 games, making six starts and recording 50 tackles for the Wolverines.

A weight had lifted from his shoulders, and a new chapter had begun for the Pittsburgh native.

“This is my first game back in 610 days. I don’t know if a lot of people know that, but I was just blessed and grateful to be out there with the guys. It felt like a weight off my shoulders. I’m just blessed to be in this position,” Hill-Green said after Charlotte’s season-opening victory. “I just want to thank Coach Biff. He’s seen it all. He’s seen stuff that nobody else has seen at Michigan and my transition coming here, and just the road to recovery. I’m grateful for him for allowing me to come here.”

Hill-Green sustained an extensive injury to his hamstring during fall camp ahead of the Wolverines’ 2022 season, citing overworking himself as a cause. Despite not starting on Poggi’s Saint Frances Academy team in 2019, Hill-Green landed an offer from Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines, which served as the next step toward his ultimate goal — graduating and hearing his name called in the NFL Draft.

“My plan coming into Michigan was three and out,” Hill-Green said. “I got my degree in three years, and I was planning on going to the NFL after my third year. I was pressing. We’d have workouts during the day, and I’d come in at night and workout again. I just wanted to be ready when the season came. I definitely overdid it, and when fall camp came, my body was already banged up.

“I was playing pretty good for the first week of fall camp and then injured my hamstring. I was still pressing, still trying to push through. I pressed to the point where my hamstring got so bad, I couldn’t press anymore. Everything happens for a reason. Looking back, in retrospect, maybe I wouldn’t have been ready if everything had gone how I wanted it to. It’s all God’s plan, and everything worked out how it’s supposed to.”

A student of the game, Hill-Green spent many of his waking hours studying film and working with weights. Time away from the game helped him reflect and prioritize what was best for him, which ultimately led him to Charlotte — again reuniting with Poggi.

Hill-Green said that accepting Poggi’s offer at Charlotte was a “no-brainer” despite offers from Power Five programs Florida State, Georgia Tech, Maryland and others. It was the relationships that brought Nikhai to a Group of Five program, where he’s become a leader of Ryan Osborn’s defense. Osborn also served as a defensive assistant at Michigan and pinpointed Hill-Green as a factor in the Wolverines’ turnaround.

“I met Nikhai in 2021 at Michigan. He was a big part of the turnaround defensively for that team. We had a lot of really good players, but he was a really big factor for us having a really good defense that year and winning the Big Ten,” Osborn said.

Preparing for Navy

Poggi coined Hill-Green as the “perfect player to coach,” and Osborn echoed those comments, highlighting Nikhai’s love for the game and his mentality.

“This game is more mental than anything else. You expect things out of people, especially players that you believe in. Intrinsically, not all these guys are built and wired the same way — they’re just not. Talking about Nikhai and Eyabi (Okie-Anoma) — those guys are built a little bit different. I expect a lot more out of them than I would someone else,” Osborn said.

“That being said, I am harder on them, and I press them. Because on Saturday, when the bullets are flying, they need to be able to go and play, play hard, and play to our standard.”

Hill-Green currently leads the 49ers with 36 total tackles, including a team season-high of 11 in Charlotte’s last game against SMU. He’s second on the team with five tackles for loss and recorded his lone sack on the season against Florida in Week 4.

With Navy up next, Charlotte has been practicing without a ball to prepare for the triple option — tackling the dive, quarterback and pitch option every single play in practice. The 49ers will tackle just one player at a time on Saturday, and their preparation has provided a confidence boost entering a crucial stretch of their schedule.

“It’s going to bring us confidence because, on Saturday, only one person can have the ball,” Hill-Green said.

“I’ve always been a huge film guy since high school. My preparation brings me confidence. That’s the mental preparation that makes me feel like I’m ready to go on Saturday because I’ve seen everything they can do. And if they do something new, I know that it’s bull****, and they’re just trying to do a trick play or something unorthodox that they don’t normally do. It’s a chess match, and I like it a lot. This Saturday will be a fun one, and we’ll be ready.”

Charlotte’s defense has shown flashes of greatness and lapses of average through five games, but Osborn expects Hill-Green and the defense to put together their first full game in front of the 49er faithful on Saturday afternoon.

“Everyone in this room has seen us play good drives, good quarters, good halves. We just haven’t played a good game yet. I expect Saturday to be that first four-quarter game that we play well,” Osborn said. “(Nikhai) is really about ball, and I can appreciate that. I’m excited for the next seven games to see him continue to grow and be a big part of our defense. Saturday at 2 p.m., he’ll put on another show for us.”