2024 WVU LB Target Andrew Hines III Speaks to WV Sports Now

2024 West Virginia football target Andrew Hines III caught up with WV Sports Now after his visit to the team’s spring game back in April. Hines last spoke with WV Sports Now back in November of 2021. He was offered by the school in October of that year.

“When I went to West Virginia it was very impressive, it was very high-energy,” said Hines. “The people there were all very welcoming, even some took pictures with me. The coaches were very welcoming. Even after the spring game, they left me behind, I was the only recruit to do a campus tour by myself.”

Hines is still a sophomore at Woodward Academy in Atlanta, Georgia, so he hasn’t been able to have an official visit yet. The 6-foot-1, 215-pound linebacker has 30 offers as of this moment. He’s been offered by Arkansas, Boston College, Buffalo, California, Charlotte, Coastal Carolina, Duke, Harvard, Illinois, Kansas, Liberty, Louisville, Marshall, Maryland, Middle Tennessee State, Minnesota, Mississippi State, Missouri, Nebraska, Ole Miss, South Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Toledo, UCF, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Wake Forest, West Virginia and Western Kentucky.

247Sports reports that he is also being targeted by Florida State, Georgia and Notre Dame. In our interview, he said that Clemson and Ohio State were also recruiting him, though neither of those schools have offered as well.

Hines said that he hasn’t narrowed down his list yet, but is looking at all the schools that have offered him thus far. He said specifically named West Virginia as a school that he has been talking to a lot. Our interview with him back in November stated that it was special teams coach Jeff Koonz who was taking the lead on the recruiting for Hines. Hines said one of the attractive things about West Virginia is the linebacker-heavy scheme that they run on defense. Hines’s goal is to make the NFL, so this stood out to him.

“I love how the program’s defense is run by the linebackers,” said Hines. “They do a lot with their linebackers. They blitz them all the time. It’s a linebacker-heavy scheme. I like how they cover. They play a lot of zone, they prepare guys for the NFL because some schools just play man and hope that their DB or rover or drop down safety can guard the guy, that’s not really preparing them. West Virginia is preparing them for the NFL by installing all these zone packages and linebacker blitzes. That definitely stands out to me.”

Hines’s high school Woodward Academy is an independent, co-educational college-preparatory school for pre-kindergarten to 12th grade on two campuses located in College Park and Johns Creek, Georgia. Hines goes to the school in College Park and starred on their football team that went 11-1 with their lone loss coming against Blessed Trinity in the playoffs. Despite Woodward being a school designed to prepare students for college, Hines credits his father with preparing him to play at the next level.

“He always pushes me to be the best that I can be,” said Hines. “He didn’t get the chance to play in college, because he got hurt, but he definitely knows what it’s like to be recruited. He always pushes me. Even sometimes when I don’t feel like it, he pushes me even further, past where I can go. He helps me become the best me I can be.”