Michigan’s losing a lot of players from this 2016 team due to graduation and early NFL Draft entry. One player they won’t lose, thankfully, is fullback Khalid Hill. On Friday, the bruiser announced he’d be returning to school.
Khalid ‘The Hammering Panda’ Hill is returning to Michigan.
Hill is in the business of scoring touchdowns, and business is good.
He scored a critical 1-yard touchdown in the final seconds of the first half in the epic loss to Ohio State.
For Hill, this was not a new thing. On the season, he entered this game with nine touchdowns on 22 carries for a total of 36 yards. He’d add another touchdown in the third quarter, bringing himself to 11 rushing scores on the year, plus a receiving TD. He’s averaging well under 2 yards per carry.
When Hill plundered his way through Ohio State’s front for his first TD that day, ESPN play-by-play man Chris Fowler called him by his given (i.e. internet) nickname: the Hammering Panda. That’s a wonderful nickname. How’d he get it? Good question.
From The Michigan Daily, UM’s student newspaper, earlier this season:
Though having a team-high eight touchdowns isn’t too shabby, one doesn’t need to look at a stat sheet to see that redshirt junior fullback Khalid Hill is happy with his new job.
The proof is on teammate David Dawson’s Twitter.
Sunday morning — just 12 hours after the Michigan football team thrashed Rutgers, 78-0, and Hill added three more touchdowns to his total — Dawson tweeted that Hill was in such a good mood that he had started loudly calling himself “the hammering panda.”
Hill is a fairly rotund player (listed at 6’2, 263 pounds), and he’s also cool. He has both of those things in common with panda bears, and he’s an eater of yardage, much like pandas are voracious eaters of food. So this works quite well.
Michigan will find itself in another short-yardage spot next season. When that happens, it’s not hard to guess where Jim Harbaugh will turn.
Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports
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