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That's indeed.com/bluewire, terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Thanks for watching. Part three, Brian, of our linebacker discussion. We are going to talk about the knowns, the strengths, and then the unknowns, or the question marks about this group, right? And so with so many new faces, and we talked about that in the last part, but there's a lot of unknowns. There's no doubt with all these new faces and guys playing in different positions. And, you know, with the guys leaving to go to the NFL, there's a lot of unknowns. But with that said, there's also a decent amount of knowns as well. And one of those major knowns, and we talk about it a bunch, is it's funny because you kind of got this group of guys, refreshments, sophomores, you know, you got a junior. And then you got Jack Kaiser, who's Jack? You got Grandpa Jack, Uncle Jack. Uncle Jack. Hey, that old man. All right, fair enough. So you've got you got Uncle Jack over here. Who's a six-year senior who comes back. And, and honestly, what a huge coup for Notre Dame to get him to come back, because he could have gone off and done whatever and been super successful in whatever he was trying to do. But to bring him back in the full draft, I think he'll be drafted. Yeah, I do. I mean, so I mean, yeah, I mean, they might have had three starting linebackers from last year. Exactly. But because Jack has really well. Yes, because he's super athletic. There's no doubt about it, but to get him to come back and bring his leadership back and his knowledge of the defense and his just knowledge of life in general, having him in that room is going to make a huge difference to this team and to this room specifically. Prize picks is America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over five million active members. Prize picks is the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. Unlike other apps on prize picks, it's just you against the numbers. 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Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences so the more you use Indeed, the better it gets. Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/bluewire. Just go to indeed.com/bluewire right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com/bluewire. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Like, you know, he's kind of a question mark as far as how he's going to go to will but there's two things we know about Jack Kaiser. Number one is he's going to be a leader of the defense. He gives that line back a room of presence. He know he's made the mistakes. He's also had the successes he kind of knows. This is how you prepare for like a professional, right? This is how you go about your business. Not only has he done it but he also was teammates with, you know, with with JD Bertrand last year, Drew White before that, right? You know, who was also a very smart, heady, prepare the white way. You don't have the success that Drew White has if you don't know how to prepare because he was a much smaller guy. Now Drew was a solid athlete as well, not as athletic as JD and Jack, but he was giving me a ran of 4-6 something in his pro day. He just was 6-foot 225. I mean, but he knew how to prepare. He knew how to go through film. He knew how to get his teammates lined up. So Jack's had some good mentors and then of course he was on the team for what two seasons with Jeremiah Wusukora Moa, right? Because Jack, I believe, was a 2019 signee with Notre Dame, correct? So 1920, 2021, '22, '23, '24. Yeah. So I mean, he's seen some things in his time at Notre Dame, you know what I mean? That's one way to put it. You know, he's one of the few guys on the defense that was played in the codfall playoff game. You know, there aren't a lot of those guys left from that team anymore either. And so he's going to bring you a lot of experience, a lot of leadership, which is very, very important. And he's also going to bring you a lot of versatility. And here's what I mean by that. You know, a lot of people talking about, you know, they need to get Drake and Kingston on the field together and Jaylon Seed him. Okay, that's fine. But let's say you get to a point in time where you're like, look, Drake and Kate Kingston are two of our best linebackers. We have to play them. So what do you do with Jack Kaiser? Well, you're not going to put him on this bench. No, you're not going to move back out to Rover. Yeah, you know, at times, you could do that. And so the fact that he can play, he started Jack Kaiser in his career has started games at Mike and Rover. And this year, he will start games at Will. So by the time we get to the Texas A&M game, that will be the third position that Jack Kaiser started a game at in his Notre Dame career. So you can do a lot of things with him, which allows you to say, hey, if there are some looks where we think we need these two guys in the field and our base defense against this particular team, doesn't mean we got to take Jack off the field. Because you can do a lot of different things with Jack. And so having that type of versatility and leadership in your room is important because if if Jack leaves, think about this, if Jack Kaiser would have left to go pro. Jaylin's need is significantly the oldest and most experienced player life. That's crazy. That's not a knock on jail. He just hasn't played a ton of line back, but he's played way more than everybody else. 100%. So that's kind of, that's kind of what I'm referring to. There's a huge lack of experience behind Jack Kaiser. So having that presence is important. Having that someone who when Drake, look, Drake Bowen is going to make mistakes. Kingston is going to make mistakes. And if you know those two guys at all, especially Drake, he may be prone to get down on himself a little bit for that minute. And Jackson be right there to be like, you know what, dude, move on. Let's do it. You know, the freshmen are going to make mistakes. Jaylin's need is going to make a mistake. And their reaction to it is going to be important, but you've got a guy there now that's going to make sure that that room is responding the right way to things. There's just all types of reasons why it's important to have a guy that is as experienced and versatile as Jack Kaiser at the position. Yeah, on and off the field. I mean, he brings so much to this room on and off the field and you're going to see it. I mean, if you are going to compliment, you know, any of the young guys for their, you know, maybe maturity beyond their years or, you know, anything like that, some of that has to go to Jack Kaiser, I mean, in my opinion, you know, because he is that leader. He's the guy that they're all looking up to. And, and, yeah, I mean, a lot of the group success, I think, well, you know, you throw that a little bit his way, you throw a little bit, obviously, the coaching staff, and obviously you throw a little bit to the actual players themselves and talking. Go ahead. No, go ahead. I was going to say I was going to transition to our next point. Well, no, let me finish up. Yeah. The other part too is when you have a guy like Jack Kaiser, there comes a point time. We just don't have to coach him as much. That's a good point. And you don't have to coach him as much, especially on the field, right? You're so coaching him up in the film room and preparation. And, but I mean, just like, you don't have to get on him as about how to go through a drill and technique and things like that as much. That means you can spend more time with the other guys. He's less than worry about. Yeah. Yeah. You can catch up off film a little bit more than you that you need to like on the field, right? Especially, I mean, spring was a little different because he is making that transition to more of a full time inside guy. But that also means, you know, Max Bullard doesn't have to use and he's a great example because he's always the first guy going through drills. You know what a drill is going to look like. Well, how to coach, what do you want me to do here? Watch Jack. Yeah. That right there. That's what I want. You know what I mean? And that's something that's been helpful too. And you can see it too. Like, he'll go through a drill and you can see merit. You can see Drake and Kingston and Jalen are all just right there locked in on Jack and then boom, they jump in and get over to it as well. So, you know, those are aspects of it that you look at and say, it's good to have. It's good to have a guy there that can that can handle that because it allows you to focus on other things. Right. It's huge. Having those veterans are absolutely, I mean, as a coach, having veterans on the team that know what you expect, you know, know how to get drills done, know, you know, again, what to expect from a practice day, you know, from start to finish and all of that stuff. Having a veteran being able to be there takes so much pressure off of a position coach or a head coach or what have you, it's massive. And he is the epitome of what a veteran is, right. And he's a guy that you have no problem having other guys follow. Now, there's plenty of other guys that could, and I'm not saying I know today specifically, I'm saying in general, there's plenty of other veterans out there that you're like, I don't know if I want my young guys, you know, following his, what he does on an off the field. But Jack is not that guy. So you can kind of rest assured and rest easily. That's the case. And the guys that he's leading, by the way, Brian and himself included are, you know, moving along with the, the knowns and, and what we know about this group is they are incredibly athletic. And this group as a whole is deeper than I remember having in the past, not necessarily from a number standpoint, but from a number standpoint in that a lot of these guys could contribute if they had to, or if they wanted to, I think is the better way to put it. You know, who's going to love this group more than it may be even more than Maxwell to your point, because you're from my athleticism. Yeah. I'm looking at this super chat we got from B feeder. Thank you for the super cat, by the way, but he says, love the linebacker talk today. Any time for special teams, events with your unique view of the kicking world, what are the more subtle advantages of a punter with a five second hang time versus the NFL average of 4.4 seconds. So we'll get into that here at the end of this deal. But when I first saw special teams, I saw LB and special teams and I'm sitting there thinking like, you know, who's going to love this group? Marty Biasi, Marty Biasi. Yeah, that's a great call. You know, I mean, look, right now, Anthony Nap might be, not Anthony, Teddy Rezak, might be your, if you had to put your linebackers on a list, one through where they got three freshmen, you've got Drake, Preston, and I'm completely drawn a blank on a Jaden Alsbury, duh, you got Jaylin's need and Jack Kaiser. So that's eight linebackers, right? Because Kahan is out scholarship linebackers. If you're going to put them one through eight, you probably put Teddy Rezak eighth right now, because he's skinny. He's got to fill out a lot, like, you know, but you're like, but that dude runs a four five, right? He runs a low four five. Like, that's the lowest guy on your list. And he's six, almost six four, Bodhi Kehoon, six, two and a half, six three, 225, 230, Drake Bowen, six, two, two, 40 Kingston, six, three, 240, Preston Zinner, who we don't talk about four or five years ago, we're talking about him maybe battling first starting job. And we don't even mention him, like right now, which we probably should, like, this is a group like, Preston Zinner may not be a, may not play meaningful downs at linebacker. But if he's not starting on at least two or three special teams, I don't know what's going on anymore. Right. Right. Like, that's something that you bring to the table, Vince. And it's, it's one of those things where not all these guys can help you a linebacker. But other guys can help you over here in other ways. There's only so many spots, right? And so many apps, you can't play seven linebackers in the game. But those guys that aren't can still help this football team win games. And that's one on special teams. So yes, it's an athletic team group. There's, there's, there's a lot of potential. And why does that matter? Why is it important to be folks on a known? Because give me young guys that may not know what they're doing all the time that are really talented. Because eventually they're going to know what they're supposed to do. Eventually they're going to learn what they're supposed to go do. Bing. If you're a 4940, knowing where you're supposed to go doesn't make you a four or five. If you're a four five and you don't know where to go, you may play like a four nine. Yeah. Right. But when you figure it out, you're back to playing like a four or five. You know what I'm saying? And, and you know, you look at a guy like the kid that, that NC State had this past year, Peyton Wilson. Peyton Wilson didn't always look like he looked this year. Now he's always been talented. He's always been athletic. He's always, he's always had those tools. But he didn't always produce like he did this past season, you know, and, and even when he was healthy. Why? Well, because he didn't always know what he's supposed to do. And as he figured out the defense, that's why in his last three healthy years, he was a 10 plus tackle for loss every guy didn't look like that as a freshman, but then eventually figured out because he's really talented. And that's the thing is give me guys that are talented. And then once, and then it's my job to get them ready to go. But like, look, no matter how hard you try, you are not going to make Joe Schmidt six three. You're not going to make Joe Schmidt 240. And you're not going to have Joe Schmidt run a four five or four six, which you could have, which you could have loved that kid. What loved it? Yeah. But Drake Bowen can learn the defense, right? The way that Joe Schmidt did, right? Like that's the difference. And then be six, two, six, two and a half, 240 and they would run Kingston is, is already six, three and 240 and can run. Now he's just got to learn the defense. Jaylin's need is six, two, two, 25. And Ken Fly and his explosive Jaden Alsbury. Same thing, six, two, two, 15, two, 20 athletic, Bodie Kehoon, six, three, you see what I'm saying Vince like, I give me those long athletic guys that are talented. And then they can learn the defense. Right. Right. So having that foundation is very important. There's no doubt about it. And then that leads into the third part. Those, these two things kind of tie together. Right. And that third part is the playmaking potential of this group and what they're going to be able to do. And we talk about the highs and the lows and and all of that. And of course, the highs being, you know, TFLs and sacks and, you know, just stuffs, right? I mean, you know, stuffing your, your gap, whatever you're responsible for, flying to the football, all of those things, those playmaking things that we have talked about at nauseam about, you know, they haven't made those plays enough in the past. They've made some and they've been in position to make others, but they haven't consistently made those plays. So those are the ups. And then you've got the downs of maybe, you know, making a wrong read and things of that nature. The goal here, Brian, and tell me if I'm wrong here, but the goal here is that the ups are far out number of the downs. I mean, there's going to be downs. Like we need to prepare people for that. There's going to be downs. I mean, it is a young group. Don't like it, but it's just reality. It's just reality. Exactly. But you want those ups to far out shadow and outweigh the downs, right? And like you said earlier, which I think is fantastic, is like you hoped that the running back that has bad vision when you make it out, you know, like that's, that's the, every coach's dream when that happens as a defensive coach, right? The quarterback goes and throws the RPO into coverage. Oh, thank God. God, that guy's an idiot because we've been so screwed. Yeah, because it was wide open. Yeah, exactly. So you we know that this group can make plays. We've seen them make plays. Can they do it on a consistent basis? Can those men can those plays far out number the other place? Yeah. And that's again, I'm going to I'm going to talk about this. That's not just true on offense. I mean, on defense, right? This is also true on special teams. And that's kind of what we're getting at. It's also true on special teams because you go look at, you know, Drake Bowen really only played one game of meaningful snaps last year, but what did he do in that game? He had a safety. You're back and watching that play. He didn't get credit for it. I don't believe, but Drake Bowen's a guy that stoned that play and resulted in the safety off the bench. You talk about to, I mean, Prince Colly never panned out at Notre Dame as a linebacker, right? But he was. He was a team player. You know, I mean, you know, in 2022, for example, he blocked the punt. Yeah, but he also scooped and scored upon against Clemson and what really broke that game open and was a very good coverage player and all this type of thing. So yeah, he never panned out, you know, as a foot as a linebacker, but the guy was a pretty darn good special teams player for Notre Dame last season. And so you need those kind of guys fans. I mean, that that's the reality is this play making if you if you've got that level of athleticism and talent that can result in playmaking ability, it doesn't just it doesn't just impact you in the in on defense. Right. Absolutely. That there's a reason that special teams are usually filled with line backers and safeties and corners. It's because those are the guys that are the most athletic, run down the field, hit and tackle people. Now, sometimes you'll have a running back a receiver that does that because they can run down field, hit and tackle. By and large, though, it's defensive players. Sure. And and as I told, I've said to server four, I have a buddy who's a special teams coordinator at the power five level and he coached against Notre Dame a few years ago. And he's like, dude, it was hell defending Notre Dame. He actually went to get some, I think twice at two different schools, but you know, he was like, it was hell going against Notre Dame because he got a bunch of 230 pound line backers that run four fives. I mean, how do you when you're at my school, how do you defend that? Right. Exactly. We just cross your fingers and hope. And you know, he skamed him up and stuff like that and made sure that they didn't take the game over as best he could. But you know, it's just one of those things where you look at it and say, man, this this group, this group is going to make a lot of plays this year. You know, Jaylin's needs going to make plays on defense. How many? We'll see, but he's going to make plays, but won't shock be shocked to be makes plays on special teams as well. Same with Kingston. I mean, it wouldn't shock it. Would it shock me if I told you at the end of the year, the two biggest plays kinks is going to make all you're going to be on special teams with that shock you be like a blocked punt or a blocked field goal or an open score or something like that would make perfect sense to me because that's exactly the role that I think he's going to be now, he's going to play defense. Don't get me wrong. He's going to play defense. It's the biggest game changing play the recovering a fumble for a touchdown. That's, you know, it's maybe on special teams instead of on off on defense. Yeah, he's going to do his job and have five tackles for loss or whatever on defense. It's but it's more about like that game changing. He's going to make more game changing potential to make more game changing plays on special teams this year than he than he would on on defense. I would imagine. Yes, completely. And that's why that's an important thing to talk about when you're talking about this group. Yes, no question. They're going to be huge on special teams and it's so incredibly important, so important to the success of this team. So I'm very excited about that part. Let's transition to kind of the the concerns or questions or unknowns, you know, however you wanted to phrase it, but we kind of touched on it when we were talking about the knowns and the strengths, right? And it's assignment correctness. And, you know, I mentioned you want the playmaking potential to outweigh the assignment correctness, but with so many new faces and so much. I mean, let's be honest, outside of Jack Kaiser is a youth movement. I mean, linebacker, it's a youth movement. So, you know, you have to anticipate that there are going to be mistakes, but you want to have those mistakes as limited as you possibly can. And so how limited can you make those assignment mistakes early and then decrease them as the year goes on? I mean, that's that's a question. We don't know where that that line is in game one and where it's going to end up being in game. If you if you tell me, hey, they're going to be good against A&M, but the next three games are going to struggle, I'll take that. You just hope that it doesn't happen in the opener, right? Like that's the thing you just don't want to give up that one bad backside zone run fit where you over pursue because you want to make a play and you don't respect the backside B gap or the backside A gap and give up like a 60 yard run for a touchdown. Urban Owens cuts it back and rips it for a 50 yard touchdown. Like those are the things you have to avoid. You lose contained on the backside Connor Wegman keeps it runs it for 30 yards. You just you just can't have those mistakes. You can't give up the cheap yards. And that's what they're going to have to avoid as best they can and just in limit those plays and how quickly can they can they become experienced vets? That's going to be a big thing. That's on them to put in the work and be prepared. But it's also a lot of is going to come down to Max Bullas, the position coach and then also Al Golden saying, Hey, look, I don't have JD per trainer linebacker this year. So I've got a I got I can't coach like I've got JD and then get mad if my young guys can't do it. I've got a coach like I got really talented young guys and then push them and coach them and teach them and get them going as fast as you can. But but make sure, especially in that first game, like if Al Golden wants to get experimental in in weeks two and four go for brother. Yeah, you know, like that's the time to experiment. That's and that's also the time to get right, you know, and all of those different things. And we've talked about that a million times, you know, get right games and, you know, things of that nature still take them seriously. And you still, you know, scheme to win and all of those things. But game one, you just hope those things don't nippy in the. Right. Right. I mean, that that's the biggest thing is they can't have those massive mistakes and you can't like all three of you guys make a mistake on the same play. Right. You know, yes. Yes. That's one of it too. The other thing too, Vince, is when you look at the linebackers, I we've talked about this more. I actually think they're going to get triggered more this year than they did last year. Okay. And in football terms, triggered is a good thing. Yeah. Triggered is like you're triggering them to attack. It's a blitz. It's a run stunt, something like that. They're triggered on that play. Who's triggered? Is it the mic? Well, that kind of thing. So it's a it's a good thing you want it. You're going to use them. I think it's because what that does is it's going to say, Hey, listen, on this plate, you're attacking this. There's no read. It's you go here. Yeah. You also have to be careful that you're correct on those things as well. Because if you don't, Hey, we brought you thinking we're going to get to the quarterback. If you hit the wrong gap and you get blocked, now we have now do we not get to the quarterback, but we have less guys and coverage now. So it's even it's not even just like read, react, you know, and flow. And it's also like, Hey, man, we're bringing you you're supposed to go through the B gap. You went through the A gap. So guess what? You lost the quarterback stepped up to the left, ran through that B gap, which was now vacated. And you know, he ran for 15 yards on third nine. You can't you've got to also make sure that you're not making those mistakes as well. So that's going to be a big question mark. And I'm not saying they're going to make a bunch of those mistakes. I'm saying they're going to make some mistakes. You don't you don't it's not okay to go out there and have every third plays a bad is an MA. You can't have that's not what we're talking about. But you've got to still perform at a high level. You just have to limit those as much as possible. And then the other thing that's going to be a key for these these players is can you can you not don't make the same mistake over and over and over and over and over? Yes, that learned from your mistakes. Right. It's it's just like having kids. It's one thing to make a mistake. Cool. Learn from your mistake and don't make it again. Like that that's the biggest thing I can forgive a mistake, you know, even as a coach, I can forgive a mistake. You know, it's if you are continuously making that mistake in practice and we coach it up and we coach it up and we coach it up and then you do the same thing in the game and you do it again in the game. Like that's where we got to have we start having a different kind of a conversation, right? You can't continuously have that conversation is going to be you're going to have a great view of the game this week. That's right beside me as Bobby and I would say splinters death are the best coach sometimes. And I try butchered that quote. But you get the idea, you get the picture. And so yeah, absolutely. It's learning from those mistakes because look, mistakes are going to happen. I can't stress that enough. Mistakes are going to happen. But you have to learn from your mistakes and not make those same ones over and over again. Right. And that kind of goes back to the depth that we talked about earlier. If that ends up being the case for somebody, there's going to be somebody nipping at their heels to take over, you know, those reps aren't sacred to one guy. And so that's where depth comes into play. And that's where you know, guys make guys better, basically, you know, the iron sharpens iron cliche. I mean, it's true. Guys are going to be nipping at your heels. They're going to be playing their best ball and they're going to force you to play your best ball. And so that's going to be super important as well. This podcast is supported by IP Vanish VPN. If you care about the security of your online activity, the easiest way to protect yourself is with IP Vanish. With the rating of excellent on trust pilot, IP Vanish provides an encrypted connection for all your internet traffic, helping to prevent websites, Wi-Fi providers, and hackers from intercepting your data, help keep your financial details, personal information, and online activity safe from threats with IP Vanish. Get started with this limited time offer and save 83% on your two year subscription. Visit ipvanish.com/bluewire. This episode is brought to you by our good friends at NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. I'm sure by now you've all got back into your Sunday routines, but they could be even better. With NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get the most live NFL games all in one place every game every Sunday. And you can even watch up to four different games at once with Multi-View, one of my favorite inventions of this decade. It's exactly what you need to catch all the action. Make your Sundays more magical. And also, YouTube TV is great. I got it this year. It's awesome. Sign up now at youtube.com/BS device and content restrictions apply. Local national games on YouTube TV and a fail Sunday ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games. Tackling, Brian, is something that I kind of have a love/hate relationship when it comes to football these days in 2024, whether it's at the P-We level, the high school level, the college level, the pro level. Tackling is not great these days. It just isn't. And that's just the world we live in because of the lack of hitting and practice and all of those different things. But tackling just has to be better in general. And that goes for everybody, but it also goes for Notre Dame. And it goes for these linebackers as well. And obviously, these guys weren't necessarily playing a bunch last year, but tackling from the linebacker position needs to be better. It just does. I mean, there were opportunities that were not met last year sometimes because of lack of tackling. I would argue they were not saying that you're not saying this. They were much better tacklers last year than the year before. And my concern is not so much. My concern with part two is the tackling comes down to really the first part. It's when you're not quite sure where you're going to be. You're not in the right hole. You don't get there the same force, the same timing. It is so much easier events. You and I think you played defense also in high school. I know I've played some defense my senior year. And when you when a running back can get a full head of steam and get in space, it's hard to, you know, if that guy's any good, he may make you look bad every now and then, you know what I mean? And you know, but when you are getting to that guy as soon as he's making his cut, he doesn't have time to build up steam or make you miss. It's like he's going down, right? Guys are a lot easier to tackle when you get them before they get going. So that makes timing a very important thing. You know, if you you have certain guys, if you don't take the right angle to that guy, he's going to make you look bad. And so those are things that are youthful mistakes. I think some of the tackling last year had was twofold. When when JD had tackling issues, more often than not, it was one of two things. One is he either went too high and JD didn't have a tendency to go too high or he just his length was an issue. He just because he's not a real long guy. Sure. And and so when he when he did have those problems, that was usually the reason why. And when you look at Marist, his his issues were more about how do I say this? Not being in the right place at the right time, right? Not a Simon sound. Yeah, not taking a right angle, things like that. It is ironic that last year, the game that JD and in Marist, the game that they both had their season high in Miss tackles was the same game. Can you guess who the opponent was and why I would want to be bringing this up? Think about it. Yes. They both had three Miss tackles against Duke. That was also where Benjamin Morrison had the most embarrassing miss of his career. Most of them were against the same dude. It's number 13. They got his now playing quarterback in Notre Dame, right? Well, I got that going for him at least. Why does that matter? One of the biggest problems that you have, the reason tackling is not as good as it used to be is because you just don't tackle this much anymore. Exactly. So, Trina, I was watching the Ryan Roberts will love to hear this, right? I was watching the program last night, right? Oh, wow. Somebody tweeted out the whole movie. Really? And so I pull I was, oh, this is pretty cool. So I had it on my thing as I would get more movie. Yeah, that doesn't happen very often. No, it doesn't. And I would assume that that tweet has been taken since it's been taken down. But I was going to take advantage of it while it was up. And so I'm watching it. And it's just like there's that pair where they're just doing like Oklahoma's. Yeah. And you're like, bro, like that's football we grew up with. Now, I have much fonder memories of Oklahoma girls. And you do probably because I was a quarterback. So most of my Oklahoma's were handing off and watching that collision. I didn't have to be part of them. You know what I mean? So I liked them a lot more. But it was one of those things, Vince, where you're like, you just don't do that anymore. You don't tackle anymore. Now, to a degree, I'm okay with it to degree. I'm not there needs to be like more of a happy medium. But sure, coaches are having to live in this new world. And a lot of us didn't grow up that way. And we have to find out new ways to do it. And Notre Dame staff, I think is still learning that a little bit. Sure. And I thought they got better last year finding different things. Do they do more tackling circuits now where they are going to the ground with pads and other type of things, which is good. But it's one of those things where, Vince, you have to figure out a way to get better at it. But I, but I'm more concerned about it from the youthful standpoint. Because when you're a split second late getting to the hole against a tech saying M line backer, you could you're running back, it may not be great for you. Same with the guys at Louisville, same with the guys at Florida State, Jamal Haynes at Georgia Tech, you know, Woody Marks at USC, you know, the Lawrence to a folly who floor state has he's there's other guys like if you're late to them, if you take a poor angle to them, they're going to make you look bad. And that's that stuff comes with with youthfulness. And so that's why tackling to me is a bit of a concern there, because it's that like Drake Bowen's not going to have some of the same Miss tackles that JD had because he just doesn't have the lack of length that JD had, where Drew Trank will ran into this a few times in their name as well, where he would go to make a tackle and, you know, a guy would put his hand on his face and he just couldn't get to him because that guy had decent length and Drew had 31 inch arms, you know, and he just couldn't get to a guy and he'd missed that tackle in the hole. And then you'd see Tae Vankoni, who had much longer arms would have that same thing happen, but Tae Vank can still get hands on the guy and make tackle. Drake and Kingston in Jaylen's need won't have that same issue that JD had. Sure. There issues are going to be more like Marists, where you're not where you're supposed to be, or you're not taking the proper angle to where you get to the point of attack, right? And so as long as they can, the faster they pick things up, the less mistakes like that they're going to make, that's going to be the key. And, you know, it's funny is the guy that I thought outside of Jack, the guy that's the best tackler that I've seen in practice, as far as being in our positions, probably Jaden Alsbury, because he's probably the most instinctive linebacker they have, just smart, knows where to go. He's going to be more in space, so it's a little different animal for him out there in space. Those guys inside are really where a lot of my concerns are, and how are they going to do? You know, can there's a play last year, I think it was in Central Michigan where Jaylen's need came on a blitz and just, I mean, it was like, oh, it's like a missile coming through the hole. But then he comes, he doesn't, he's not, he's not, doesn't come in balance, comes too high, and the running back makes him look bad. It's silly, doesn't he just whiffs? Yes. Jaylen's need is a more veteran player, might come through the hole at the proper angle, meaning you don't come at that guy square to the inside because he's just going to back jump, cut you outside. You come at that guy outside older in because what's he going to do? Run into the quarterback or run back to where you have help, right? Those little things, like that six inch difference is, is, or that six inch change of proper angle is going to be the difference between you making a big plate in the backfield or a guy making you look silly because Jaylen's need to get duped in the backfield because he's not athletic. He's an exceptional athlete. It's because he didn't play with proper technique and it played a top proper angle. Does Jaylen see make those plays this year or not, right? That's where you hope the experience comes from. Same with J.D. Drake and Kingston. J.D. always took the proper angle to those plays and just blew it up. Like there was that one play against USC where he kind of hits the quarterback and the running back at the same time because he's like, well, because he knew where to go to where the running back couldn't escape. So the running back kind of ran back into the quarterback and J.D. is able to make that play. Those are the things that you hope that these guys can eliminate as quickly as possible and not have a lot of those big mistakes because not only does it limit the bad plays Vince, but the bigger thing is it's going to enhance the big plays. And we talked a lot about this defense, finish better, finish better, finish better. That's very true at the linebacker position. And it's going to determine a lot of, okay, are they going to be able to make enough plays to kind of over to not overdo but to nullify maybe some of the technical mistakes they're going to make or assignment mistakes are going to make that part right there is going to be the key to that. Yeah, turning turning mistakes into big plays too. You know what I mean? Because a slight mistake in the past has meant a big play but a slight mistake now because of the athleticism and things of that nature could turn into a big play for Notre Dame as opposed to giving up a big play, right? That the margin of error is larger than I think it has been in the past at linebackers. Does that make sense? You know what I mean? Not that you want to keep erroring, but I just think the margin of error is a little bit bigger because of the lack of experience. Right. Once that gets rectified by playing more, because I hate to break it to y'all, but there's really only one way to fix an experience and it's to gain experience by playing. That's why I always love coaches that never play certain guy. Well, he doesn't have enough experience. Well, whose fault is that? You're the one that chooses to play or not. But once that's rectified, then I actually think it's the opposite. I think that the March for error is even the margin for error slides to advantage 2024. Yeah. Once the mental part gets out because you do have longer, more athletic, you know, physical. Right. Right. Right. Yep. And that's what I was saying. Yep. I'm agreeing with you. Yeah. For sure. With you. The last part we want to talk about in this segment is the pass rush, which I think is a very interesting and under-analyzed part of this linebackers core. These guys, and you mentioned, like Jaylen stayed, for example, right. And we've been told and we've seen with our own eyes, he just looks more comfortable this year than he's looked in a really long time. And he's the type of player that whenever, yeah, ever, good call, because he's been in high school. Jaylen just got by on God-given freak athleticism because he had to play. His head coach, God love him, because he was so better than everybody else. He had to play him everywhere. Yeah. He played quarterback, running back defensive and linebacker safety. I mean, then moved that kid all over the field. Right. So Jaylen was never given the opportunity to learn a position. That's not a fault of coach pain. That's what you do when you have great players. 100%. You know, is you look, I'm going to use this guy as a weapon. Yeah. But when you just talk about strictly projecting to the next level, it can create some, you've got a longer road to track, right, to get to where you need to get to, where a guy who played Mike his whole career and has learned, you know, is able to make a faster transition. Well, and that's, and that's the point that I was going to make about Jaylen is that when he's comfortable and he comes downhill really, really well, just when he doesn't really know what he's doing. And then he hesitates and you can't really use him in a manner that you might want to use him. But this year could be a lot different. I was just using him as an example of a way that you could use him in a pass rush. But the way these guys are with their athleticism and with their athletic ability and all of that, you can use them with the pass rush this year. This is what I would say, Vince, to your point, and I agree with you. This linebacker core should be even better as pass rush is than last year's group, right, should be based on what you're talking about talent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Drake is explosive downhill. You know, maybe he's not the side to side guy that other guys are, but downhill Drake gets after it. Kingston can get after it. I mean, we saw that in one-on-ones. Kingston has a knack for winning. Like they were putting him over guards in one-on-ones in practice and he was beating them. You know, he's got a knack for it. Jaylen's need athletically should be an outstanding pass rusher. Jayne Nalsbury, if you're not, I mean, they're going to bring him off the edge. They just will in some of those nickel and base defense looks. Jack Kaiser is a pretty athletic guy. He should be a good pass rusher. We haven't seen him do it a whole lot from as an inside guy, but he has the tools to be so. But can they do it? Like the talent's there, but we just haven't seen this group of guys really do a whole lot when it comes to the pass rush. I mean, look, Jack last year had 12 pressures and Jaylen Seed had 12 pressures. They had seven combined hits in the quarterback. They had two sacks. Well, if you look at their pass rushes combined, they had 123 total pass rushes. Maris had 129. So Maris had 25 pressures on 129 snaps. These guys had 123. That's almost identical numbers for your two wills. If you look at Maris, he had nine sacks plus hits on the quarterback. This is according to pro football focus. These two kids had nine combined. So on on six fewer total pass rush opportunities than what Maris had. So like you should see it, but it's it when you also look at it, Vince, it's like, yeah, but those aren't a lot of opportunities. Yeah. You know, we haven't seen them do that actually a lot. Drake Bowen only had 11 pass rush opportunities last year. That's it. Now here's the good news. He had three pressures in those 11 opportunities. You know, so so if you actually look at it and you take his three pressures and you divide it by the number of total pressures you had and then multiply it towards the number of pressures that JD Bertrand had. Jack Drake Bowen would have had 28 pressures last year. JD Bertrand had 30. So it's right. So the per snap stuff is good, but that's not always how football works, Vince. You can't always replicate. Well, if you give the guy 100, it was like, remember the year the Dexter Williams average nine yards a carry. And everybody's like, why don't you play him more? Well, the next year they did play more and Dexter was still a very explosive running back, but he was in like six and a half yards a carry, which is very good. He only was at nine per carry the year before because he only had 30 some carries. And when you have one long run on 30 some carries, your yards per carry after it's going to be very high. You know, it just doesn't always work that way where you okay, you multiply it times this and you give like you give Jack Kaiser the same amount of snaps that that Maris had last year, it doesn't mean he's going to have way more pressures. Right. If you look at Jack's production on a per snap basis, he had 12 pressures last year on 40 pass rush attempts. That's it. If you multiply if you take that towards what Maris should had last year, the number of snaps, Jack would have 39 pressures compared to Maris's 25. Well, there's two problems with that. Number one is most of Jack's pressures came off the edge. You're just going to have when you're just coming off the edge, you're having a greater opportunity for getting a pressure. Number two, again, we don't know how he's going to do that on a more permanent basis. Right. As an inside guy with 200 extra snaps under under spelt. Right. So it is a question mark. I'll say this. I'm excited about this group as pass rushers. I think that they've got a chance to be very disruptive, not just on getting pressure in the quarterback, but it's a much longer group outside of Jack Kaiser than it was last year. And I would even I would be curious to see what Jack Kaiser's length is compared to JD Bertrans. I'm very curious to see that because I think Jack looks about a half an inch to an inch taller than JD. Yeah. Just visually, he looks taller than JD, but not by a ton. Sure. JD was a little thicker than Jack is, but is Jack looks a tad longer than JD, like here. Jalen Snead is only six, one and a half, but he's got very long arms. Yeah. Drake is six, two and a half with long arms. Kingston six, three with long arms. And and a height to me matters a lot more for a linebacker when it comes to breaking up passes height plus length. Right. Because if I'm if I have 31 inch arms and I'm six, three, I'm going to get a lot higher than a guy that's five 11 with 31 inch arms, right? I mean, that's just I'm not the smartest guy in the world. It's a math, but I can figure that one out, right? That's math. So you've got longer taller linebackers that are athletic. The disruptions aren't just going to be getting to the quarterback. You hope that they're also quarterbacks trying to throw hot, you get your hands up, right? More tip passes. Yeah, I think this group has a chance to be really dynamic as pass rushers. But that is 100% linear phrase. That's 95% of projection. Because the things that that we're going to that we're going to see them as to do this year as pass rushers is going to be completely different than what they were asked to do last year. That's that's going to be the key. But it's so it's a question mark for now, but it's one of those question marks that you look and say, I like where there's what I think they're going to be. This could end up being a strength of this team and allow them and then, of course, if the D lines as good as we think too, and these guys are going to get more run through lanes, right? There's going to be some big hits on running backs and quarterbacks this year. If the D lines as good as we hope it's going to be. We got one more section to get to. But before we do, make sure you hit that like button, that subscribe button, that notification bell, share with your family and friends. And also jump onto the boards boards at irisbreakdown.com. Lots of good stuff over there always has been always will be and it only gets better when you join. So make sure you make that happen. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] (electronic music)
