We're driven by the search for better, but when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search "match" with Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. Ditch the busy work. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster, 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. This episode is brought to you by Michelobultra. Michelobultra is perfect for more than just the summer heat this year. Because not only is it refreshing and crisp with only 95 calories, but Ultra is also the official beer sponsor of Team USA at the Olympic Games Paris 2024. Celebrate every point, race, and moment with Team USA and Michelobultra for the Olympic Games Paris 2024. Stock up on Michelobultra and cheer on Team USA. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2024 and Heisler Bush, Michelobultra, light beer St. Louis, Missouri. So part two of today's podcast is we're going to talk about the line-backing core. And we're basically going to follow the same kind of outline that we've been following as we've been going through the different position groups. And this is a very interesting position group on the defensive side of the football. Brian, for the last, gosh, it feels like a lot longer than it probably has been the last at least two years. All we've heard is, got to get faster, got to get longer, got to get more athletic, and, you know, they just kind of look past the production of the guys that were already in there. And here we are. Now, I guess now is the time, right? I mean, you've had some graduations and you've had some guys move on to the NFL and you've got a lot of production, obviously, that needs to be replaced. But a lot of new faces in the line-backing room and a lot of excitement when it comes to the line-backing room and some guys move in positions and and all kinds of stuff like that. And so this is going to be a very interesting room moving forward, right? I mean, overall, who's playing, who's not all of it. There's a lot of question marks with the line-backing room, but a lot to be excited about as well. 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. All you do is pick more or less on two to six players' stat projections and watch the winnings roll in, baby. Get in on the daily action with your friends and become part of the prize picks community today. Get in on all the excitement and win up to 100 times your cash with the summer games on prize picks. With prize picks, you can turn ten dollars into a thousand dollars while watching team USA rack up the gold medals this summer. You can make prize picks line-ups of players across basketball, soccer, tennis, golf, and more in as little as 60 seconds. Just pick more or less on two to six players' stat projections and you're locked in. Prize picks is available in more than 30 states across the country including California, Texas, and Georgia. I recently won big with a four-player stat projection. I picked LeBron James to go under 17.5 points in team USA's first game of the tournament. I picked Stephen Curry to go under two and a half three-pointers. I picked Kevin Durant to go over 13.5 points and I threw in Dansby Swanson to have over half of an RBI. Bing, bang, boom, baby. That's a victory. It's just that easy. Download the prize picks app today and use code IRISH for a first deposit match up to 100 dollars. That's code IRISH on prize picks for a deposit match of up to 100 dollars. Pick more. Pick less. It's that easy. We're driven by the search for better but when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search "match" with Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors according to Indeed data and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. Ditch the busy work. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. 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, head 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. I mean if you really think about it, they have no returning starters a linebacker. And I mean that in two ways. Number one is Jack Kaiser was the starter when they went to their base defense. But he only played 300 plus snaps last year where the other linebackers were around 600, 600 plus. And a big reason for that is because they only played their base defense maybe half the time. And then some of that not even half the time because then Jack got a ton of reps in the central Michigan game when they played him at Mike linebacker when JD Bertrand was out for a game. So, you know, Jack's not a returning starter even if you want to look in the technical sense. He's clearly not because he only started four games. He was only on the field for the first play in four games last year. But even a practical sense because like if your rover only starts three games because you just happen to start nickel a bunch of times but he still played you know 350 foreigners. He's kind of a starter. Sure. The reason I say that not practically and technically he's not a returning starter because he's not coming back at the position he played last three years. A different position. Because I count Jack Kaiser as a returning starter even though technically he wasn't. He's a returning starter. He's played a ton of football. He started a bunch of games. He in whether he was the first guy on the field for the first snap or not. It's not really how I evaluated. But he's not playing Rover anymore. He's now playing Will. We don't even I mean we don't really know how he's going to do there. I didn't think Jack played great at Mike last year when he stepped in the starting lineup. And I don't think he played great at Mike the year before we started against North Carolina when JD was out having said that. That's because he was going from Rover Rover Rover Rover Rover Rover. Oh, by the way, this week we're going to put you Mike right because JD is out. That's different than Jack having all winter all spring and all summer to prepare to play inside. So it's it's it remains an unknown right. You can say well look, I didn't think Jack was great inside in the past and he wasn't. But that was a different type of scenario. Yeah. And what we can say is but in space Jack was their best playmaker last year in space and the numbers show that. So the answer is I don't know what he's going to do this season. I don't know how he's going to play. So even your sixth year senior played a ton of football over a thousand career snaps guy is still an unknown. Mm hmm. At will linebacker. So when you look at the linebacker position, there are tons and tons of question marks about this group. It's tons of question. Oh, yeah. Who's going to start? Who's going to be in the rotation? How deep is the rotation going to be? How often are they going to rotate? Are they going to do more situational stuff this year where last year, Marist and JD, we're in a lot of different things this year because you're deeper and you've got a lot of your guys that were freshmen and sophomores last year now sophomores and juniors and you've got a new batch of freshmen coming in. Yeah. So you're deeper than you were. You're a little longer, a little more athletic. This year you're not as experienced. You don't have a two time captain, a middle linebacker that you never want to take off the field now. So they may say, Hey, look, Drake's your might linebacker. But maybe when they go to some nickel packages, he's not in the game where JD was last year. So there's a lot of different things you can do. I have my dime set of linebackers, my nickel set of linebackers. I have my, what do they call like the Aztec defense or you know, thing that they had all of these names. So in the past, the two mainstays were Marist and JD and all those things, Marist and JD. Will those guys be the mainstays this year? Like they were. Those are all things that we don't know. And it's kind of like receiver events where if they've got four or five linebackers that they think and play, these are ways to do that. Hey, we really like Jaden Alsbury. We like him inside and outside. So maybe in sort of your dime package, he goes inside because that's more of a run around and there's a lot of different things they can do. And I think that's going to be a way that they can get those linebackers in the game beyond just okay, it's series three, put the two in. Those type of things. And those are options. I don't know what they're going to do. Right. Right. Al Golden's definitely not going to show us that in practice. Not a chance. But I think that's what leads to some of the uncertainty about the linebacker position this year. The counter is, it's also a very talented group, you know, which we can kind of get into. So that's where I'm at with this group, Vince, is there's so many question marks about it. And the reality is this defense needs the linebackers to play at a higher level. When you look at the defensive line and the secondaries and yes, the last year's D line was better. Year before's D line wasn't as good. It wasn't terrible by any stretch. The secondary has been pretty good each the last two years. The difference in play at linebacker from year one to year two was the biggest difference in this football team last year. Absolutely. Like that is the defensive football team. That was the area where you saw the biggest jump from year one to year two, where I thought Maris and JD both struggled in 2022, especially Maris. I thought JD was better than a lot of fans game credit for. I think most people recognized it in 2023. And Maris got a lot better in 2023. Big jump as a group. Jack, I thought was better in a lot of areas. And I thought Al Golden learned how to use them better. He understood, okay, this is where Jack is really good. This is where Jack has some matchup disadvantage. So here's a thought that's not put Jack in those situations as much. That's called this thing we refer to Vince's coaches. Good coaching, right? But does he know this group as well, since they haven't played as much, and those are all part of what makes us a question mark, mince, because if they can't figure it out, that's going to hurt the defense. D line can be great, but if the linebackers aren't fitting properly and wrapping up and making plays, time and blitz as well, guess what they're going to look like the 2022 unit. Sure. And that's going to limit the defense. So we don't talk as much about this group as a question mark, understandably so, because it's super talented. But I do think there are some big question marks that are kind of like, well, we need to see how it's going to be this year, because we don't know a lot about these guys and what they can do at Notre Dame. And that's kind of where the conversation begins, in my opinion, is that right there is, do we really know how good this line backing core can be? Right. And the answer is, no, we don't. But you then get excited when you start saying, well, I don't know what they're going to be. And they start listening to names. And you see how some of these guys are performing in fall camp and you should say, okay, I don't know what it's going to look like. But I kind of feel like it's going to be good, because there's a lot of really talented players here, really talented players in this football team. And that's the key. I mean, we don't know what the end product is going to be. We don't know what the rotation is going to be. We don't know if they're going to be able to fill the shoes of the two guys that have been playing a ton of football that aren't on the roster anymore. Right. I mean, those are two, those are big time questions for this group. But there's a lot of fans out there. There's a lot of analysts out there that have had their eyes on the guys that are now going to get an opportunity, right? The jail, Jaylen Sneed and and Drake Bowen and all of these guys that everybody's been clamoring for. And now you also throw in KVA and Jaylen Ozzberry and all of these different guys. And it's like, okay, we think that they have a ton of potential. We think their ceilings are very, very high. What is that going to look like now that they're the guys, right? They're not just coming in for some spot work. They're coming in and they're going to be counted on, right? And it's not about individual talent. Now they've got to fit into Al Golden's defense. And and some of these guys have been only in Al Golden's defense for three years. Some of them have been in there for two years. You know, those are, those are some big question marks, right? And I think it is exciting. I am very, you know, interested to see how it all shakes out. But at the same time, this is still the group on defense that I had the biggest question marks about just because of all of the unknowns. And we're going to get in to the knowns and unknowns in a second. But I just, there are so many different aspects of this linebacker core that can be really, really good. Like I see how it could be really, really good. I can see it, but I need to actually see it. You know what I mean? Like we need to actually see those guys playing with the D line and playing amidst the back end and how all of that fits together. And you know, all of these different things. And look, out there, there's not many bigger fans of Jack Kaiser than me. I love Jack Kaiser. I think he's a playmaker. I think he's got a nose football. But we haven't seen him consistently on the inside, let alone it will, right? As a starter, we haven't seen it. You know, and so just a lot of things to be looking out for and a lot of things that we're all going to be seeing for the first time when they strap it up down in Texas, you know, and in college station at night. So there's a lot to be excited about. I'm excited about this group, Brian, because I think that the ceilings are very high for this group. Are some of these guys going to meet that ceiling in 2024? Or is it going to be beyond that? Those are also questions that be answered. This podcast is supported by IPVanish VPN. If you care about the security of your online activity, the easiest way to protect yourself is with IPVanish. With the rating of excellent on trust pilot, IPVanish 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 activities safe from threats with IPVanish. Get started with this limited time offer and save 83% on your two-year subscription. Visit IPVanish.com/bluewire. That's 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 MultiView, 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 and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games. I would make this case, Vince. I think linebacker is arguably the biggest litmus test for Marcus Freeman and his coaching staff in regard to are they as good at recruiting as we think they are. Like right now, it's about man, he landed this guy and that guy and this other guy and boy, the talent is so good, but that talent hasn't necessarily manifested into production because his first full recruiting class are rising sophomores. They've only been on campus for one year. I mean, the junior class was the class that was put together primarily while he was the coordinator and the senior class, he wasn't even at Notre Dame when that class got put together. And obviously, fifths and sixths and the transfer. So, you're starting to see, okay, that we love the talent, right? Like you look at Jaylen Sneed, the linebacker position is the one position and this is my point where the roster is almost, almost exclusively Marcus Freeman and his staff recruits. The only exception is Jack Kaiser, who now goes into his 21-22 fourth year playing for Marcus Freeman. Yeah, right? Like Jack wasn't recruited by Marcus Freeman, but he's going to be a sixth-year senior. He played under coach Freeman in 2021. He played under coach Golden 22 and 23 and now he goes into year four. So, if he's the recruiter we think he is and this staff is the developers of this position like we think that they are, there may be some ups and downs early, but this group should be very good. Yeah, that's a projection. That's the thing is we don't know that, but if it's not good, then this is a position where we say, okay, well, we thought that Marcus Freeman was really good at evaluating linebackers and turns out maybe he wasn't or it's going to go the other way and you're going to be like, see, this is why you're comfortable because we're still in that unknown of, I think Notre Dame is reloading, not rebuilding. Like there are, you know, some teams, and it was this way in learning for a long time, you can't lose a Joe Walt, a Blake Fisher, an Audrick Estimate, a Sam Hartman, you have three transfer, four receivers transfer out, you lose, you lose Duvante, Jean Baptiste, and Na Na, one end position, you lose JD who's a two time captain, you lose Marist who's a multi-year starter, you lose Cam hard who's a three-year starter and a captain instead, you lose DJ Brown who's a multi-year starter and wasn't a captain but had a lot of that type of ability. You don't lose that many guys and you're just expect to be better the next year. That hasn't been true at Notre Dame for a long time. There was always that kind of rebuild and then go back up again. And now you feel like talent wise, just looking at the roster, you feel like, no, they're in reload mode. But that's a projection of what we think based on what we think of these guys as recruits. And this is, this is the position arguably where it's, there's no position that's as dominated in my opinion by recruits at this staff. You could look at offense, right? And say, well, what about offensive line? I mean, Billy Schrauth and Charles Jagasol and Ashton Craig and Emil Wagner were all guys that basically committed to and are playing for Marcus Freeman. I get that. But they committed to Harry Eastan or Jeff Quinn and Tommy Reese. They weren't recruited and identified by the current staff. You get what I'm saying? So, I'm simply, this position is, and on the offensive line, you still have Pat Kook and you still have Rocco Spindler. You still have Tash Baker. You still have a lot of guys, Ty Chan, that were recruited by Brian Kelly and his staff. This position is everyone except for Jack Kaiser was recruited by Marcus Freeman, either his decordinator or head coach. And that's why I say this position more than any other could be the one that you look at and say, this is going to tell us how good they are at evaluating overall. I feel like we have that answer in the secondary Mike Mickens because his guys have kind of stepped up kind of early and he's been here longer. But I think this is where, because you deline, we're not going to find that out this year per se because you've got Riley Mills and Howard Cross and guys from the Largent, Jordan. Right, exactly. This position is almost exclusively outside of Jack Kaiser, all about Marcus Freeman's recruits. That's true. And that's partly where my optimism comes from. But if we're also being objective, we have to be willing to say, this is a big show me year for Marcus Freeman and his staff when it comes to recruiting. And can you be dominant when your recruits are now more of the primary aspects of your rotation and you're starting lined up? And that's going to be true a lot, but nowhere more true than it is a linebacker. Well, and I think that if we're mentioning coaching that we also have to mention Max Bullah because he was a defensive analyst, but he was a graduate coach last year in title. And exactly, I mean, he was, for all intents and purposes, he was the linebacker. He was the linebackers coach. He just wasn't getting, he wasn't getting paid like it. Let's be honest, that's the biggest difference between Max Bullah's job now and Max Bullah's job last year. Yeah, he's being paid better. Yes, a lot better. The point is, our golden early on was a lot more involved at linebacker. So with Marcus Freeman, but it was it was by time we got to fall camp bench, you and I were at drills, it was pretty much Max Bullah, whatever the linebacker absolutely was like, man, who's the guy that's like full of energy and piss and vinegar and all that. You know, like, that was Max Bullah. He's like excited to be out there. So I think this is also going to just tell us a lot about Max Bullah. Look, we all like Max Bullah. We like what we see at practice. We like his enthusiasm and all of that. But there's a bunch of young guys that are going to get a bunch of playing time this year who have pretty much primarily been coached by Max Bullah. Yeah. And, you know, we talk about Joe Rudolph and how his guys are now going to be taking center stage. You can say the same thing about Max Bullah, right? And so I think this is going to be a telling year for for him, you know, and and throughout the year, not just at the beginning, you know, you don't just analyze a coach based on how his guys do in game one. But as the season progresses, are those guys continuing to get better and continuing to get coached, right? I mean, I that's what you're for him. The thing about this group is two vents is it's a it's a younger group overall. Right. Absolutely. I mean, you're gonna have Jack Kaiser is a six year senior. Jaylen sees a junior and then the rest of the lineup is freshman and sophomores. Right. It's a young group. Yes. What does that mean? Is that an excuse? It's not an excuse. It's simply saying there's going to be some ups and downs early. It's just the nature of being young. Sure. And when you consider your six year guys playing in position, he's never played full time before. He's like a young guy. There's going to be a need to be a level of patience with the linebackers this season. And I think you nailed it. It's how quickly can he get them up to speed. Right. Like there's going to be some run fit mistakes early in the season. You just hope they're not against A&M, right? Or you hope that the incredible times. Yeah, your opponent doesn't take advantage of it. Right. Sometimes you have a bad run fit and it and it doesn't hurt you because the running back made a bad read. You know what I mean? Absolutely. And those are those man. I'm so glad that running back has no vision because otherwise we'd have been screwed. You know, but then also the way that Max, the way that Al Gold runs his defense, he does then ask the safeties to make the linebackers right with how they kind of run fit, which is essentially your job is ideally to do this. But really your primary responsibility is to fit off of what the linebacker does. Yeah. And if he does this, you've got to do this. You've got to make him right. And that helps a little bit. But at the end of the day, your linebackers are a very important part of this defense. And so are they going to be able to go out and make? Because like what we've said is this, this is kind of been our prediction. There's going to be more mistakes by this group, but there's going to be more plays by this group. Right. Right. Is that actually how it's going to play out? You know, are we actually going to see this group, you know, make more plays because I I'm pretty confident in the part that is going to be more mistakes. Because you've got such young players at the position by and large, although you could argue that well, you had a fifth year senior last year that made his fairs. I mean, as good as Maris was it in playmaking, Maris still made plenty of mistakes last year. That's just kind of who he was. He played with a little bit of recklessness as a linebacker. And it's just that's kind of what happened. So you say, well, you know, I think Jack Kaiser is probably going to be a little bit more disciplined than Maris was as a player. So now we're talking about the position now Mike. But because Jack moved into will, you now have a new spot at Rover. So those are going to be questions. But how quickly can they get up to speed? Right. How quickly can they, you know, say, Hey, we're going to go out there and yeah, we're going to make these mistakes, but they're going to be limited, but the production's going to be worth it. That's the thing. Because if you look at the starting linebackers last year, they combined for 14 and a half tackles for loss last season, right? Seven from JD, six from Maris, that's 13 and a half. And then Jack Kaiser had so actually be fifth. JD had seven and a half. Maris had six. That's 13 and a half. So actually 15 tackles for loss last year, because then Jack had one and a half tackles for loss. And then you look at the sack numbers. Maris had three JD had two and a half. So that's five and a half. Jack had one and a half. So that's seven. Right. So 15 tackles for loss seven sacks. And then you look at the pressure numbers and you see what their pressure numbers were. You know, JD had 32 pressures last year. Maris had 25 pressures last year. Huge jumps in the year before. Jack had 12 pressures last year. So you start counting those up. Those were 42. That'd be 67 pressures last year. Right. So then you look at say, okay, at the end of the year, are those numbers going to be better? Now you're going to have to look at it from more than three guys. Right. So you're going to be counting more than three guys. I just counted the three starters because they were the ones that Pradami played. Jayden Staincy very rarely played at linebacker. He played a lot of third down stuff, a lot of nickel stuff. You know, so but that's going to be the question is, does that jump, is it enough to negate some of the mistakes you may see because of their youth? That's going to be the question, right? Because like, and that's part of, I mean, look, Jeremiah Wusukoramoa had more bad fits and more bad angles with the ball in 2020 than any other linebacker on the roster. It didn't matter because you can block them. Right. You know what I mean? Like how many times do we see him go underneath a perimeter screen and go blow it up? You're like, dude, that is the one thing you can't do is go under, but it didn't matter because he was so dynamic and so smart, not smart, but so and so like reactively quick. And not that he's not smart, but that wasn't the word I was looking for in that particular instance, that he could still go make the play. Well, I don't know that the guys this year, are they that good, where they can make those kind of mistakes and it's still result in a big play. That's what you think you're getting with Drake Bowen and Kings severely on my ass and Jayless heat and Jay Nalsbury is they may make mistakes and still have a tackle for loss. There were if you graded Jeremiah Wusukoramoa in 2020, this is actually was a fascinating thing to do events every week is to watch his film because you'd be like assignment minus assignment minus assignment minus and oh, by the way, it tackles for loss on two of those three plays. You know, he like he was so good where he could do the quote unquote wrong thing and still blow it up because you and you lived with it because you're just like, dude, he's just a football player. Like I got to let him be him and him is like he thinks he has a read on something and he's going to go to it and blow it up even though that's technically what he wasn't supposed to do that or play that angle. But that's how good he was. Can this group provide some of that? Not to the degree that he did because he was a freak. Can they provide some of that? That's going to be the question. That's where we got to find out and how much they can add that is going to determine how much we can live with the potential of some of the youthful mistakes. And then to Max Bullah, can you work out those youthful mistakes by the time we get to November? Sure. That's going to be the question. And that's when it matters. I mean, not that it doesn't matter in the first 12 games because it does, but when does it really matter when the rubber meets the road and the playoff, right? When it's winter, go home and all of that stuff. And that's what you need to see. And that was my absolute point when I was talking about Max Bull and we're going to learn a lot about him is like, if the linebackers are at the same place in game one that they are in game 12, then you're scratching your head and you're like, is what we want to see actually, you know, is what we want to see from the linebacker room actually occurring, you know, because there's a lot of talent there, but they're not getting any better, right? And they're not really reaching their ceiling and they're not doing this and they're not doing that. And I don't think that's going to be the case, but that is still something that we need to see throughout the season need to see that maturity level going up. You say that assignment correctness going up, you need to see just general improvement from the entire room so that when it does come to playoff time, when it does come to postseason time, these guys are ready to play at a high level. I mean, that that's absolutely what it comes down to. No, it's better why I meet myself because I almost interrupted you three times. That's not partly why I meet myself. I know it is because I just want to talk, you know what I mean, initially, I know it is not not let them keep going. Let it's all good. That's the thing though, but the playmaking has to be there for them. Yes, 100%. That's the thing. 100%. The highs have there has still has to be those highs, right? There can be lows, but there still has to be those highs. That's what we need to see. For sure. So that's going to do it for this part. So make sure you stick around, but like, subscribe, hit that notification bell, share with your family and friends, jump on the boards, boards.Irishbreakdown.com. We really appreciate that. And I know you'd appreciate it as well because you're going to get all the information that you want to get about this team in a timely fashion. And that only happens over on the board. So make sure you log on boards.Irishbreakdown.com for all of your Notre Dame football needs and wants. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
