I'm not worried about DE, we have plenty of options there, so that cancels that. NG we played without Mick the majority of the year, so we have Davis, or either of the Daniels twins to make me at least feel a bit better there. Gifford was extremely productive and our best pass rusher, but setting the edge doesn't worry me next year, tho I could see how people would have picked him like Mick at NG. Safety was what I was debating on for first along with Young. But we brought in a top5 safety class in the nation for 2018, and we are going to bring in another stud class for 2019, and we bring back Deontai Williams, have four star Dismuke, etc. So that leaves losing Young, who I know everyone said wasn't very good, but who is replacing him? Either a true freshman, or some guy coming off a knee injury that couldn't unseat him when he was healthy in 2018. Ruud has his work cut out for him.
I went with S just due to the volume of loss there and how well they were playing down the stretch. Gonna be a tough job to not have a drop-off there.
ILB/OLB have me a little worried, but I'm hoping Honas comes back strong and that we have some young bucks who are going to be athletic and ready to roll . . . albeit needing to learn on the job. Young made a lot of tackles for sure--but he was also pretty routinely on the "what the hell is he doing??" list even as a Sr. Just seemed like he didn't flash the instincts and being-at-the-right-place-at-the-right-time traits like you would expect a guy with his experience to have. Domann was coming on at OLB late for the passing situations and I have to think the staff will have some more guys ready to go there. Tannor comes with another year and added S&C, etc. Maybe some other dudes figure some things out (looking at you, Breon)?
I'm not as worried about the line vs those other choices.
I thought Young was good, just not dominant. I may be wrong, but I feel ILB is as much instinct and ability as technique. I see a lot of young kids laying inside, both in college and the NFL. That is why I did not vote for Young.
I think that makes sense. Henrich isn't going to wow you with his stats, but his film of actually playing football is some of the best our coaches have ever seen. It goes a long ways. If we can get him to 225-230, watch out.
He and Hannah have a great opportunity even as Freshmen. Seems like the key for them is gaining that weight to be able to withstand B1G offensive line guys blocking them at that second level. Two guys that are going to be standouts for the Huskers in their careers. Can’t wait to see them in action. Both are dynamic!
All of the above are quotations related to Dedrick Young and/or the ILB position. I've talked about this before, and it seemed to clear some things up for others, so I thought that I would repeat some of the same things here.
Dedrick Young was a very good athlete, a good tackler, and an above average college linebacker, but he wasn't a natural fit for playing ILB in a 3-4 defense. He would have been an excellent Sam LB in a 4-3 defense, which was probably what he was originally intended to be. He ran well laterally, covered the passing game well, and was a pretty decent tackler in space. These are the reasons why he started for four years, and why he had so many tackles.
What he was NOT good at was taking on a lead-blocker, establishing leverage (by keeping a clear path to the ball), and diagnosing running lanes on the fly. If you look at highlights of his best plays, you will most likely see a series of tackles where he was able to move laterally, quickly or take an uncontested angle to the ball. You won't see him (like Barry) knifing through the line to make a tackle for loss because he diagnosed the play quickly and played it at full-speed, running down hill. What you also won't see (like Honas) is him blowing up a FB in the hole on an Iso running play, then making the tackle.
Young could be an intriguing player at the NFL level. He runs well for a guy his size and tackles well, but he doesn't seem especially powerful. With all of the new look offenses that teams are running with players who can line up in different positions, he might be the ideal sort of defender to have to handle a Gronk or similar TE who sometimes lines up inside and blocks and sometimes flexes out and creates mismatches in pass patterns. I think Young would do better than most in being able to hand both. Since most NFL teams are looking for TEs like Gronk and Kelce, NFL defenses are probably also looking for the sort of hybrid LB/S players to match up with them. You may have noticed that that's what Gerry was doing for Philadelphia, but Gerry is faster/quicker and might have more power in his legs. Don't be shocked if Young ends up being an NFL player.
Back to Nebraska and next year, Ruud/Chinander/Frost have brought in ILBs who are ideal fits for the ILB position in the 3-4. You don't need to know much about LB technique to see how good Jackson and Henrich are at flowing to the ball, identifying the play, maintaining leverage (which almost always means holding off a blocker with one hand while keeping the other arm open to the side where the RB is going), and slicing into the backfield to make the play. They will need to put on weight and get more powerful (this really is a place where squats are king), but they have all of the tools already, and they seem to already have an instinctive feel for the position. This year, though? If they have to play, they'll have to learn on the run with a steep learning curve. Honas is more a Mike LB from a 4-3 system, and I think that he had a lot more difficulty than expected in knowing how to flow and fill in any given look. He would have helped a lot against Iowa though.
I picked Safety as my chief area of concern. It takes a lot of time and repetition to pick up the position. The ILBs help with lining up the front 7, but it's much harder to line up the back side of the defense, and that includes switching off assignments with LBs when WRs or RBs go in motion. They have to be able to identify the formation and where everybody should line up, and along with that know where their responsibilities are. When a team shifts, or someone goes in motion, all of the above can change, and there isn't time to talk it over. They have to be able to identify running plays as quickly as possible, coming up to fill their gap like a freight train, but they also can't let anybody get behind them on a pass play. When you understand how hard it is to do both with almost everyone running a multitude of RPOs out of multiple formations, you start to understand why being a great athlete is just not enough. Neal and Williams were very experienced, smart players, and Reed was getting everything figured out by the end. If Deontai Williams flashed signs of brilliance last year, it was at least partly because he was often given the simplest part of the equation, and he didn't play in every defensive package. It's not as simple as him taking over because it's his turn. We have some young studs, but they'll make a lot of mistakes as they figure things out. We're going to get burned early a lot in the season, and hopefully we settle down after that.
