I have been dismayed by the performance of our LBs since the first play of the season, on which we saw MSU's running back go around end for a TD on his first carry in the Big Ten. Since then, the play of our LBs has not improved. But, over the previous 25 years, probably no position at NU has been as strong as linebacker. Fitz certainly knows linebacking and presumably is good at discerning and recruiting talent for that position. Tim McGarigle is one of our most respected coaches, a candidate for DC jobs, and a former all-conference LB. It baffles me that we can struggle so at this position. The guys on the field appear slow, weak, and frequently confused. What the heck is going on? Highly touted recruits such as Cullen Coleman, Michael Jansey, Khalid Jones, Jaylen Rivers, and freshman Mac Uihlein sit on the bench. Does anybody have a clue as to what is happening here?
Linebackers
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Coleman was moved to DE. Jansey and Jones have been hurt for a good portion of the season. Rivers has had a club on his hand the last few weeks or so. Uihlein is a freshman. You forgot to mention X. Mueller who played a decent amount last week in place of McIntyre. Other than that, I have no clue.
Bergin was a known commodity and generally has played well this year. With that said, my suspicion is that we are seeing the effects of our loving the "Irish Law Firm" of recent years so much that we gave almost all snaps to those three guys and failed to develop the next generation. Another possible theory is that the next generation contained some recruiting misses who just didn't merit playing time. But I would prefer to assume that the superior play of the Irish Law Firm caused us to play them all the time. Who knows?
If that’s true, it’s the optimistic option over just a massive recruiting miss at the position. And even in this optimistic case, it would still speak to the coaches not learning anything from failing to develop a successor to Thorson.
Bryce Gallagher is doing, ok, not great. I don't think I've seen the third guy make more than 2 plays all season. Yahoo sports says 80 tackles, I must have missed 78 of them. Maybe they were on the punt team.
Behind that, I do recall Mueller making a couple of plays but that's it.
I think young Gallagher has improved noticeably and he will be a good one like his bro. X Mueller has upside too but hasn’t had the chance to show much. I was expecting big things from Jansey when he was signed but nothing yet.
Jansey has been banged up. Will have his chance next season along with Uilein. Maybe Brus gets some reps too.
Supposedly connected to the Syracuse transfer originally from Canada, who I believe would have two years of eligibility. Geoff Cantin-Arku.
Bergin plays his heart out and deserves the appreciation of all Cats fans. However, he has deficiencies that were masked last year when he played alongside Fisher and Gallagher. Those deficiencies have been apparent this year. The younger Gallagher has improved, but has a ways to go to be a stalwart at the position. We need help here, either from inside or outside the program.
QB and linebacker aren't just "holes". They are giant, gaping chasms. I was lulled into complacency by the Hilinski transfer, but LB was and is a problem. Bergin is a good player - very good - but he's like a gold glove shortstop with 9 home runs that you put at cleanup. He's just not that guy. And he's one guy. Now, we have one returning linebacker (Gallagher) and a bunch of question marks. I suppose we can "hope" for Uhlein to be like Paddy in his first year of playing, but that's not enough.
After the game on Saturday, Fitz needs to put each of the assistants on a plane (figuratively) and tell them not to come back without a transfer QB and 2-3 linebackers. Just stay out there till you get one.
Do we have a consensus opinion on whether Pooler and Meiser were successes or failures (obviously judging each independently)? The line has been bad, and though it could and probably would be worse without them, knowing what we know now that it's a lost season, getting young returning players those reps would probably have been better than what we did. It comes down to Fitz & Co. either committing to a 1-year turnaround, hitting the portal hard at 80% of positions, or accepting that 2022 is a 6-7 win season at absolute best, and more likely a 4-5 win season that will position the team for a run at the West in 2023. Trying to have it both ways ends up with neither a division run or valuable development.
Both were average in my opinion. The bigger question is why Gold, Butler and Edwards did nothing. That's very concerning as those 3 guys will need to make big leaps if the dline has any chance of being good next year.
A problem I have with our linebackers, which has not received much attention, is their pass coverage. I tend to watch pass coverage as much as possible, and our linebackers constantly look confused and badly positioned. There will often be two linebackers almost within a couple yards of each other covering one receiver while one or two other receivers are running free in the linebacker zones. Sometimes all three will be within 6 or 8 yards of each other while receivers are running free. They will then sometimes talk with each other after the play like they did’t know what the other guy was doing. Miscommunication in games 1 and 2 are one thing, but it continued until games 6,7, and 8. The last few games have looked better.
A confused and out-of-his-league defensive coordinator leads to confused and out-of-position defensive players. Not much of a mystery to me.
I had to turn off the Wisconsin game after they went up 14-0 because our defensive alignments were so bad.