New Position for Hildebrandt at Randolph-Macon College this Season
Evan Hildebrandt eyes more potential playing time this season at a new position for the Randolph-Macon College football team.
“It’s been great here,” Hildebrandt said. “We won our conference championship last year and we should be good again. I got a little playing time last year [at offensive line].”
The 6-0, 254-pound defensive lineman enters fall camp, which begins Aug. 10, at the Ashburn, Va., NCAA Division III school, on the depth chart on the defensive side of the ball for the first time in college.
“I switched during spring ball,” he said. “It’s really about learning technique better now. The transition is going well. The coaches switched me to get me more playing time, hopefully. It’s helped a good bit that I played defensive line my senior year at Fellowship.”
The rising junior is excited for his third season of Division college football in the Old Dominion state.
“Everything has been going well here,” Hildebrandt said. “I’d say the demand of being a college athlete is tough, but I like it. We put a lot of work into it. Everything went smoothly last year. We have great coaches here, and great players.”
The Yellow Jackets, who open the season at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., on Sept. 4 at 6 p.m., have won the last two Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) championships.
In 2025, Randolph-Macon went 9-2 overall and 8-0 in the league but fell to John Carroll University in the second round of the NCAA Division III Championships following a first-round bye.
In his freshman season, the Yellow Jackets posted a 10-2 overall record that included a 1-1 mark in NCAA Division III Championships. Randolph-Macon went 7-0 in ODAC contests to win the title and went on to reach the third round of the NCAA playoffs.
What’s been the biggest challenge of college football?
“Right now, it’s learning the systems, first on the offensive line and now defense,” Hildebrandt said. “It’s more of a challenge at the college level. It’s harder here. Now my goal is to see what I can do on defense. It’s where I can fit in best.”
This summer, Hildebrandt has studied a lot of game video in addition to off-season workouts while working in Richmond, Va.
The 2024 FCS graduate is also keeping busy this summer participating in an internship with Kimley-Horn’s office in Richmond. He’s working on traffic pattern research for the firm known as one of the U.S.’s premier planning and design consulting firms.
“It’s been great getting experience there,” said Hildebrandt, a general engineering major with minors in mathematics and physics at Randolph-Macon.
Evan is the second Hildebrandt brother to play Division III football in Virginia. Eli Hildebrandt spent three years with the Washington and Lee University football team and played quarterback from 2021-23.
(Photos courtesy of Evan Hildebrandt)