BATON ROUGE, La. -- Just hours after a judge did not send Jeremy Hill to jail for violating his probation, the LSU star was reinstated to the team and was back practicing with the Tigers.
LSU coach Les Miles allowed Hill to rejoin the team after the running back met with the team and players voted to allow him back. Hill practiced Monday afternoon, the first day of LSU's fall camp.
Hill had been suspended from all team activities since his April 29 arrest for punching a man outside of a Baton Rouge bar. Hill was already on probation for pleading guilty to a 2012 misdemeanor stemming from his sexual relationship with a then-14-year-old girl while he was a student at Baton Rouge's Redemptorist High School.
Hill pled guilty to misdemeanor simple battery for the bar fight charge in July. Monday's hearing was on whether to revoke his probation on the 2012 charge based on the violation of that probation.
Instead, state district judge Bonnie Jackson chose to extend his probation and add more community service, opening the door for his return to the team.
"He owes this team, this school, this community his best behavior," Miles said. "He will have further punishment. It will be internal. It will be comprehensive. We will see the whole person."
Hill appeared at a news conference after the Monday afternoon practice where he apologized "to, first, my teammates and to the community," he said. "I made a poor choice in judgment. But I've learned from the mistake. Moving forward, I will continue to be a better person, a better teammate and a role model for kids in the community."
Asked if Hill might miss games as punishment, Miles declined to go into those details, saying he wanted to keep the punishment internal.
"I'm going to review this and make a quality call the best I can," Miles said.
Hill emerged in the second half last season and rushed for 755 yards and 12 touchdowns as a freshman in 2012, leading to big expectations for 2013.
Even if Miles allows Hill to play in LSU's season opener against TCU, the coach said Hill has work to do to regain his starting job.
"He was rusty as heck," Miles said of Hill's first day of practice.
Miles said that had Hill not gotten in trouble, he would have entered August as the starter. Now, he'll have to work behind Alfred Blue, who was the starter for the Tigers' first two games last season before suffering a season-ending knee injury.