The task of trying to engineer a better Stephen Hill has been intensive.

But reports on the progress of Georgia Tech’s wide, and sometimes wandering, receiver have been encouraging, in a vague, off-season kind of way.

Coaches say Hill has modified his work habits, putting in extra time after each spring practice session, while building a solid rapport with his quarterbacks. His focus seems to be crisper. He is hanging more muscle upon his lean frame. And, since being declared ineligible for last season’s bowl game, Hill says he has regained some academic equilibrium.

During Saturday’s T-Day spring game, as part of a sputtering first unit, Hill had little chance to break out any improvements. Thrown to just three times, he caught one flanker screen for six yards. He spent the rest of the afternoon playing decoy/innocent bystander.

The Hill Project will progress from here, full-time and not limited to the on-campus work. Weekends at home continue to be a major part of the effort, too.

A bigger, stronger Hill — one whose hands might clamp onto a ball, vise-like, rather than leak like a sieve — is reflected in the family grocery bill. “The amount of food we cook on the weekend, he better put some weight on,” said his father, Henry. “We try to beef him up at the house and let school take care of the rest of it.”

The junior from Lithonia, who turns 20 Monday, came to Tech a 6-foot-5, 185-pound state long-jump record holder. As testament to the power of home cooking, he currently goes about 215, looking far more substantial and feeling far fitter. Although maybe he’s not quite so aerodynamic. Hill says he’ll never again challenge the leap of 25-feet, 8¾ inches he made as a senior at Miller Grove. (While not exactly Beamonesqe, the record has stood for two years.) “I’ve gained the weight; that’s not going to work anymore,” he laughed.

Support at home

But just as important is the feeding of the soul that goes on all year long during Hill’s regular trips home. That was particularly meaningful last December, when Tech informed its starting wideout that he was not academically eligible to travel with the team to the Independence Bowl.

Normally, being told not to go to Shreveport, La., could be considered good news, but not when you are a football player finishing a season in which production lagged far behind expectation. That banishment represented a final gulp from a fountain of disappointment.

When Hill performs the autopsy on his 2010, it is gruesome. “I feel like I just let my team down,” he said. “You have a vision, starting from the summer, of what you’re going to do and, when it doesn’t happen, you feel like you let the team down.”

Last season, Hill, seen as stepping in for Demaryius Thomas (Denver’s top 2010 draft pick), had exactly 31 fewer receptions (15 to 46) and 863 fewer yards receiving (291 to 1,154) than Thomas the year prior. The number of drops mounted. The big plays went absent. (Thomas produced 18 plays of 20-plus yards in 2009, Hill had six in 2010.)

After Hill got the word that he was out of the bowl game, there was only one thing left to do: Huddle with dad. “He’s always the guy who makes sure I keep my head in it.”

“[The bowl ban] really had an effect on him,” said Henry. “We had a talk about moving on, about how this ain’t the end, about being positive about everything. Things like this happen. Then we stood up and we prayed together, and I think that prayer reached him.”

In the tradition of spring, where new beginnings bloom, Hill waxes optimistic for 2011. He’ll enter the season as the enigma of a gifted athlete who hasn’t quite assembled the pieces of his talent — wrapped in the riddle of where a wide receiver fits in Paul Johnson’s option offense. But there is a message he would like to leave with sometimes doubting fans: Better days are ahead.

Seeks understanding

Please, he asks the blogging public, no negativism right now. When asked if there was one point he’d like to get across here at the close of Tech’s spring practice, the gregarious receiver had plenty to say:

“People just don’t know what athletes go through. We have a lot on our plate. We go to school, to one of the top institutions in the world. There’s a strong responsibility for a lot of things. Things [fans] say, I respect it because they’re diehard fans. If they want to see me catch the ball, I understand.

“But we got a new season, something new coming up, something we’re really looking forward to as a team.

“That was last year. This year, we can talk positive. We know Georgia Tech is going to be a good team this year, going to make things happen, try to get back to the ACC Championship again, because that felt really good my freshman year. As fans, let’s talk positive.”

Last season, comparisons and expectations weighed on Hill, and it showed.

“He’s very bubbly, the life of the party, a guy who’s always telling jokes. And when he’s not, that’s when you know is something wrong,” said senior A-back Roddy Jones.

“He’s at a place that has put out Calvin Johnson and Bebe Thomas over the past five years,” Jones said. “People are looking for the next big thing, and I think a lot of people put a lot of pressure on Stephen. And he put a lot of pressure on himself. He needs to know he doesn’t have to be those two guys. He just has to be Stephen, and he’ll be plenty good enough for us.”

Staying positive

Engineering a better Hill has involved a lot of work under the hood. His mental short-circuits have sometimes interfered with his indisputable physical talents.

So his coaches and his teammates and his family take up the ceaseless drumbeats of feel-good messages:

Stay positive.

Don’t dwell on the last play, let alone the last season.

Focus on the moment.

Work harder.

Make your own name.

This season will test all those football bromides. Hill’s development will rely in great measure on how the rest of the offense grows up around him. Quarterback Joshua Nesbitt is gone for good, and someone is going to have to emerge as a reliable pass-delivery system if any receiver is going to be anything more than a very fast downfield blocker.

Those around him have tried to install the mechanisms to cope with whatever challenge the new season might bring.

“I think he has more understanding of what it takes [to make it],” said Tech receivers coach Al Preston. “He’s learning how to move on to the next play, learning how to handle success and failure the same way. That has translated off the field academically and socially — where he’s starting to understand things, how to manage himself so he can have the most success.”

“He’s a gifted athlete; he knows what he can do; it’s just putting it all together on this level,” said Hill’s father. “He’ll get it right. From all the talking we do, I’m quite sure he’ll get it right.”