We’ve arrived to what may be the most anticipated and controversial depth chart preview of the off-season. Let’s fancy a discussion about Notre Dame’s linebackers!
Indeed, we have two forces slamming into each other (like a Marist Liufau stuffed blitz into the left guard) right now about whether the Irish linebackers are good enough and if new starters are going to be taking over in 2023. Sit down, and pick a side for today’s article.
Previous 2023 depth chart articles:
Offensive Line
Defensive Line
Wide Receiver
Projected 2023 Linebackers
| Rover | WLB | MLB |
|---|---|---|
| Kiser, 5th Sr. * | Liufau, 5th Sr. * | Bertrand, 5th Sr. * |
| Sneed, r-Fr. | Kollie, Jr. | Tuihalamaka, So. |
| Ziegler, r-Fr. | Ausberry, Fr. | Bowen, Fr. |
| Schweitzer, r-So. | Zinter, Fr. |
*Returning starters
Experience: A-
Depth: B-
Talent: B
New Starters
Let’s get right into things straight away. One of the biggest message board topics this spring and summer will be Notre Dame possibly replacing their linebackers. Here’s a look at how the 3 starters fared during the 2022 season:
MLB JD Bertrand
Snaps: 521
Solo: 45
Assisted: 37
Tackles: 82
TFL: 8.5
Sacks: 2
PBU: 2
Stuffs: 25.5
WLB Marist Liufau
Snaps: 601
Solo: 22
Assisted: 29
Tackles: 51
TFL: 4.5
Sacks: 0.5
PBU: 1
Stuffs: 15
ROVER Jack Kiser
Snaps: 305
Solo: 28
Assisted: 30
Tackles: 58
TFL: 5.5
Sacks: 2.5
PBU: 0
Stuffs: 18
I am curious what people think when they wonder if Notre Dame will “go to new linebackers” this upcoming season? I think there’s almost zero chance that Bertrand or Kiser will be moved out of the starting lineup. Outside of injury, I can’t envision any scenario where either player is going to be replaced or play significantly fewer snaps.
If anything, Bertrand and Kiser will be playing more. Bertrand missed the Navy game (Kiser and Liufau combined for 6 stuffs that game so Bertrand missed out on plenty of opportunities to make big tackles) and he should push towards 600 snaps while a 3-3-5 is rumored, and if so, certainly Kiser will be on the field a heck of a lot more than in 2022.
The case with Liufau will be much more interesting to track.
His numbers back up what fans were able to witness with their eyes–Liufau really struggled to make plays and be a difference maker. Is it possible we see him outright lose the job heading into September?
The main challenger should be the highly touted Price Kollie who played in 123 snaps as a true sophomore. Is there any way he’s pushing towards 400 or 500 snaps in 2023?
The Case of Junior
There’s a belief that sophomore Junior Tuihalamaka could be moving to the pass-rushing Vyper position this year. Is it a good idea? If that’s where his skill-set is best used, it would be tough to argue otherwise, although he showed some very brief promising flashes at linebacker as a freshman.
You could also argue he’s not going to see the field much behind Bertrand. However, if Junior moves to the defensive line who is the backup at middle linebacker? One would think incoming star linebacker Drayk Bowen is The Future and could be fast-tracked into that role now.
Alternatively, are we sure there are reps at Vyper if Botelho, Jean-Baptiste, and Burnham (another former linebacker who already moved here last year) are all locked in on the depth chart?
A Look to 2024
Can this be a quietly overachieving season coming up for the linebackers in 2023? That depends upon where you’re going to set your expectations and this unit as a whole probably will be providing its fair share of frustration whenever anything goes wrong on defense. I can foresee a situation where this group becomes the whipping boy of the 2023 team.
Looking long-term, the Irish could be losing all 3 starters after 2023 (the 2024 defense could be really inexperienced, by the way) which means trying to get some backups more snaps if possible.
For certain, a future lineup of Sneed (Rover), Kollie (Will), and Bowen (Mike) has some of the biggest potential in recent Notre Dame history, especially if we’re looking strictly at recruiting rankings. That would put 2 high school Butkus Award winners, plus the no. 34 overall player in his class, on the field at the same time.
That sounds exciting, and is part of the reason why some Irish fans are going to be very impatient with any mistakes for the current starters.
The first 5 weeks of the schedule this year should be really interesting for this group, but it also may not tell us a whole lot about the staff’s true feelings about this group:
1) Navy – always weird to play against their offense, especially for the LBs.
2) Tennessee St. – FCS squad, should be able to rotate heavily
3) Central Michigan – might be the first game we play our LBs in our standard rotation, but should still be able to rotate fairly aggressively
4) OSU – Will we be in Nickel the entire game?
Really hope the offense can stake us to two or three efficient touchdowns against Navy. Experience matters a lot against the option, so would really like the younger guys to get reps.
Looks like Schweitzer is a transfer possibility. Anybody else in the group you see thinking about leaving?
Very telling that Kiser had better statistics across the board than Liufau, with almost half the snaps. I don’t know how much of that is scheme… but i was awfully tired by the end of last year of watching Liufau blitz to be stonewalled at the line. It was almost like he just picked out the free lineman and ran straight into him with no effort to get through to the qb. It looked like a complete waste of effort to me. Hopefully that changes this year. If were going to blitz, we need to get home a reasonable amount of times, if not the sack, at least some disruptive pressure.
Maybe there was a reason Marist was a barely top 500 recruit and a grey shirt; he was a project. Maybe he was a project that was on track to working out spectacularly before he crashed his ankle. After the last season it seems that he is no longer on that track.
I would love him to find some control in his rush and movement, and maybe ditch that magnetic force that attracts to opposing guards.
Barring a great spring, I would start moving on to younger guys.
Even if he ends up as a poor man’s Joe Schmidt, we’ll always have him terrorizing Sam Howell in 2020.
I’d be in favorrr of a total youth movement across the board at LB – just pull the bandaid off. There aren’t a lot of playmakers on the DL so my fear is that the existing LB’s are going to get swallowed up against the run, and will have little impact blitzing. So, I would be in favor of getting as much raw talent as possible on the field as early as possible. What do I think will realistically happen? Status quo with the returning starters getting 80%+ of the snaps.
In moderation, maybe. Give Kollie all the chances in the world this spring/summer to prove he can do more than Liufau, sure. No problem there. But I think a guy like Bertrand is out there for a good reason as far as being the best at what he does and what they need in the middle.
Yeah, the II guys had Bertrand as a top-5(!) player on the team last year. I’ve made my fair share of snarky Bertrand comments, but he and Kiser were both pretty good during the second half of last season.
Liufau, on the other hand… there has to be *somebody* on the roster better than him for next year.
With higher athletic potential amongst the underclass LBs, and thin numbers at DL, a 3-4 or 3-3-5 predicated on stunting DL and fast play would be interesting. Give sneed and Kollie simple roles on the edge to play fast, and let JD and Kiser take on the interior stuff. As I write this, it feels like the script syracuse tried last season, which doesnt bode well vs power run teams, but how many of those are on the schedule?
After the navy game, mike goolsby had a poignant thought regarding liafau: hes extremely stiff in the hips. Most of his “leverage” on run fits comes from bending at the waist, instead of in the knees, and I think that led to a lot of him getting eaten up in the run game. Outside of a violent strike, he didnt have a diverse tool kit in block shedding, like I saw kollie beat blocks by having a strong base, sitting low with good knee bend, and using his legs for power in taking on linemen. I think there was mental pressure for marist as well to elevate his play, but my working hypothesis is the major source of his play is biomechanical. Hopefully this can be addressed and trained in the off season, he loves to hit, it just needs to be optimized.
No one really thought of USC as a power run team but their RB game was a key part of moving the ball. 3-3-5 gives me a lot of pause as a scheme. I guess to your point if Sneed or Junior T is a part of a 3-3-5 but more of a rushing player an pseudo-fourth lineman, maybe that helps. I think I’d rather just have an extra big guy in there, though.
Who are the best front 7 players? I’m not sure, but whatever package puts our best players on the field, I’m for that one.
Botelho (flashes) – Cross (steady) – Mills (flashes) – Osafo-Mensah/Jean-Baptiste (flashes)
Kollie (flashes) – Bertrand (steady) – Kiser (steady)
I’d say right now we know that three of the seven spots won’t be drafted and the other four spots don’t currently project anyone to the first two days of the draft. That doesn’t sound like a defense that can go to the playoffs unless there’s a lot of development this offseason.
Quote from Preston Zinter: “Right now Coach Golden is telling us to learn all the positions. All the three linebacker positions. Mike, Will, and Rover. So we’ve been studying all those kinds of positions. There’s been some talk of, like on heavier downs, where I might get moved up on the line and there’s a five man front and all that kind of stuff, but right now I’ll be focusing on all three linebacker positions.”
Along the lines of the above the coaches need to works these LBs out so that the best players can be on the field regardless of perfect position. That really appears to include Kollie when the ball gets snapped no matter how fast and long Liufau is in practice.
Tuihalamaka was already listed at 240 as a freshman, bigger than Burnham, and was maybe running around a little heavier than that. At 6’2″ he’s already a little bit of a tweener, he’s probably not the best Vyper for a goal line set (a concern for the whole line), but a few more pounds of muscle and some reasonable technique he could be really obnoxious for offenses at that position on normal or passing downs.
It doesn’t feel like the defense is fitting together perfectly going into spring practice. Undersized defensive tackles, LBs moving to Vyper (and thus adding to the DL size deficit), talented young LBs possibly sitting behind struggling seniors, so there’s stuff to figure out. But the corners have the potential to be amazing. Like back-to-back season first round draft pick amazing. LFG Ben and Cam, no pressure.
I suspect Tuihalamaka is done at LB and is moving to Vyper – Jean-Baptiste is going to play SDE, I believe, and Burnham didn’t sound like he flashed enough last year to be second-string. Given the LB depth otherwise, it seems like a bit of a no-brainer.
Relatedly: it was really nice to have a couple years there where the DL depth was good. This now feels very early-to-mid Kelly era again DL depth-wise.
The only way Liufau should be back out there as a starter is if Kollie has no idea where he should be on the field. A starter has to do more than flash, and he only had a a few flashes.
I am more torn on Bertrand. He puts up the the numbers, but he is more steady than stud. If Kollie shows stud, as predicted, steady works.
That said, I think the better alignment would be Kollie to Mike, Kiser/Bertrand at Will and Sneed at Rover. We then have two potential stud linebackers and a steady force in one spot. I will confess I don’t really know the difference between Will and Mike. If you want a better cover guy at Mike, than reverse my alignment. I was under the impression the better run stopper and bigger guy was the Mike.
In fairness to Liufau, and to some degree Bertrand, it was Golden calling all those inane lets blitz the LBs right into an OG all the time. I don’t think they took themselves out of the play on their own. Not sure what the thinking was behind playing D with 9 or 10 instead of 11. I was always amazed that more teams didn’t slip a TE or TB into the huge empty space he left open.
However, if we are light on the DL, and we would likely be, I would think a 3-4 rather than a 3-3-5 would be better. In that case, my 4 would be Sneed, Kollie, Kiser and Bertrand.
Two five * recruits should not be playing behind a 3* project, that really isn’t panning out, and a 3* kid who is literally getting every bit of his potential out there. The upside is so much greater with Sneed and Kollie that we have to try.
I am not sure we have the personnel to run a 3-man front.
The line was gashed anytime we dropped into that formation. Lack of a true NG that can suck up blockers to allow LB to run free is the primary worry.
That being said, if a 3-man front is in our future, I’d prefer the 3-3-5.
It seems that the secondary is in better shape than the LB corps (assuming the Liufau-Bertrand-Kiser are all in the starting line up) and I will take the extra safety.
Maybe a new set of eyeballs (GA Max Bullough) on these guys helps. Status quo from last year and better red zone D (can’t get worse) and I’d be very happy.
Not related to anything here, but I was looking at the updated rankings of the ND 2023 class, and things did not go well for our commits’ rankings. Other than some of the lower ranked guys, nearly everyone dropped at least a good amount across all of 247/on3/rivals.
Drayk Bowen dropped from a five star when he was considering going to the SEC to play both baseball and football to outside the top 100 composite while winning the Butkus Award for the best LB across all of high school football last year.
Brenan Vernon dropped from a five star when he was an assumed OSU commit to the number 200 composite after he committed to Notre Dame and refused to do interviews.
Those two drops were a little fishy. Hopefully they’re both ballers.
(Both were 5 star by at least one service, not necessarily composite.)
I think for Vernon it was that he grew out of a DE into a DT and wasn’t as good there. I’ve read things generally along those lines, although I’m sure I’m not remembering it quite correctly, but definitely size related.
Tom Loy, who isn’t shy about being optimistic about ND recruits, said Vernon’s drop was legit and he is a high-3/low-4 star talent. Apparently had a bad junior season and ok senior year.
Bowen idk. Maybe size-related