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Friday January 2nd, 2008
12:01amHow Did Our LB Situation Get to This Point
The Blitz Bros. - John Roper and Aaron WallaceTexas A&M used to be known for producing freakish linebackers. Names like Ed Simonini, Dana Batiste, Johnny Holland, Aaron Wallace, John Roper, Marcus Buckley, Quintin Coryatt, Keith Mitchell, and of course, the legendary Dat Nguyen.
Look at our rosters from the last few seasons and you won't find many guys who would sniff the 2-deep fifteen to twenty years ago.
Unlike the OL situation, the problem at LBer started well before Coach Fran took over the program. He was put into a bad situation and it was one that he was never able to dig out of. When Fran took over in 2003 the linebacker situation was in bad, bad shape.
A B B.Adams 0 0 N.Manning 3 0 A.McDaniel 5 0 J.Morris 2 18 E.Smith 6 1 S.Stickane 9 0 T.Thompson 1 0 J.Warren 7 0 Totals 33 19 Column A is the number of starts by that player in 2003 Column B is the number of career starts by that player prior to 2003We had two players with a single career start under their belt....and Everett Smith was being moved from safety to linebacker for the 2003 season so he had never made a start at his new position prior to 2003. To make matters worse, in our second game of the season, Morris was injured and done for the year. As you can see, we had no one with a lick of experience.
Keep in mind that we were playing with a 4-3 base defense under DC Carl Torbush but even more crazy to think about is what would R.C. have done running his 3-4 defense? How could he have fielded a team that put 4 LBers on the field?
Coach Fran hit the road and recruited some JUCO guys to try and stop gap the problem but wasn't able to get the situation stabilized enough to where he didn't have to keep dipping into the JUCO well at the position once the first batch finished their eligibility.
I don't think that starting experience is quite as important at LBer as it is at offensive line. Experience is always good but I don't believe it is a crucial at LBer. By that I mean that you see a lot more freshmen and sophomores playing LBer at a high level than you do at OL. Quality depth, however, is important.
So why has our depth chart been in such shambles for so long? Let's take a look at our signing classes at the position.
What I did was put either an "x" (if he didn't play) or the G/GS for each year during the time span of that player's career. I stopped the "x" after a player's eligibility was up (so in the case of Justin Warren who played 4 years without a redshirt he didn't get any "x"s).
I think the chart gives a good idea of which players were able to contribute and which ones did not during the time we anticipated them playing.
Player 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 1998 B.Gamble x 11/8 11/11 11/8 12/12 - - - - - - - 1999 J.LeDoux - x x x x x - - - - - - J.Morris - x 8/0 11/8 10/10 2/2 - - - - - - J.Penright - 10/0 10/2 11/8 12/11 - - - - - - - D.West - x 8/0 x x x - - - - - - T.Wooldridge - x x 5/0 8/0 x - - - - - - 2000 R.Cardoza - - x x x x x - - - - - L.Shepard - - x x x x x - - - - - B.Thompson - - x x x x x - - - - - 2001 J.Boutte - - - x x x x x - - - - Br.Johnson - - - 11/0 10/0 x x x - - - - R.Webb - - - 11/0 12/2 x x x - - - - 2002 K.Flood - - - - x x x x x - - - N.Manning - - - - x 12/3 9/1 9/0 8/0 - - - A.Matakis - - - - x 10/0 x x x - - - A.McDaniel - - - - 12/0 12/5 12/4 11/9 - - - - 2003 L.Mitchell - - - - - x x x x x - - T.Thompson - - - - - 8/1 x x x x - - J.Warren - - - - - 12/7 11/9 10/10 13/12 - - - 2004 A.Boudreaux - - - - - - x x x x x - A.Brown^ - - - - - - 2/0 x - - - - L.Foliaki^ - - - - - - 12/8 7/6 - - - - K.Goins - - - - - - x x x x x - R.Greene^ - - - - - - 12/8 11/4 - - - - T.Smith^ - - - - - - x x - - - - 2005 J.Richardson - - - - - - - x x 4/0 x x 2006 M.Dodge^ - - - - - - - - 13/5 12/12 - - P.Fleurinor - - - - - - - - x x x x A.Lewis - - - - - - - - 11/0 12/1 8/0 x M.Tupe^ - - - - - - - - 12/8 13/12 - - 2007 D.Stephens - - - - - - - - - x x x C.Young - - - - - - - - - x x x 2008 A.Buckley - - - - - - - - - - x x R.Cavanaugh - - - - - - - - - - 5/0 x K.Mangan - - - - - - - - - - x x
Class LB/Class G GS 1998 1 45 39 1999 5 87 41 2000 3 0 0 2001 3 44 2 2002 4 95 22 2003 3 54 39 2004 6 45 26 2005 1 4 0 2006 4 81 38 2007 2 0 0 Totals 12 176 82 (The ^ indicates that the player was a JUCO transfer and for those players I only put an "x" for the years of eligibility they had remaining)
Justin WarrenYou can see by the chart, 6 of the 13 LBer recruits that Fran brought in after 2003 were JUCO guys. In fact, the last non-JUCO LBer we recruited that started more than 1 game in his career was Justin Warren, who was a true freshman in Fran's first season. In 2004 we recruited 6 LBers - 4 JUCO & two HSer....neither HSer made it to campus). Because JUCO guys only have a year or two of eligibility remaining, we end up getting put in a hole a couple of years down the road because you have to focus on reloading the position more quickly. You never have a chance to solve the problem, just band aid it.
Another problem was that we had to take a few risks to bring in talent on the defensive side of the ball, not just at LBer, and it just didn't work out with guys either not making their grades to get in, or once they got in Fran sent them on their way because of other problems.
I do want to make mention that the participation is much more difficult to chart and is less accurate than the OL because LBers tend to play a lot more special teams than OLmen do. It is also more difficult because as the game goes on the defense will line up in different formations, with a different number of LBers on the field. OL doesn't do that (you've always got 5 OL on the field). Also, with the LBers we see a lot of hybrid play between the safety and LB position so for those players the games played and games started is not accurate from a LBer.
The recruiting contribution chart is particularly interesting. If you just run your finger down the 2003 column you see that we got a combined TWO starts out of our 1999, 2000 and 2001 recruiting classes. Those three classes should have been juniors, seniors, and 5th year seniors in 2003 and I think it is pretty safe to say that upper-classmen are usually important to have.
I think that the scariest thing about this chart is that if R.C. had been around for 2003 we'd have continued to run the 3-4 defense and having to put four LBers on the field would have been even tougher.
Ok so let's go year-by-year from there.
2003
We've already discussed '03 but here are the game-by-game starting lineups anyways.
2004
Alright, now go back up to the chart and run your finger down the column that says 2004. You'll find that the class of '00 would have been 5th year seniors and the class of '01 would have been seniors if they played all 4 years. Unfortunately, not one player from either of those classes was still on the roster.
Fran was forced to hit the JUCO ranks hard, and did so with various successes. Renuel Greene and Lee Foliaki both played a lot for us. Foliaki single handedly won the Colorado game for us as he stripped the Buffs RB at the goal line in OT. That's about all I remember about Foliaki.
We also had to move Keelan Jackson from safety but he injured himself early in the season and wasn't able to work his way back into the starting lineup.
Youngster Justin Warren and junior Archie McDaniel got the lions share of time at MLB with Nurhada Manning and walk-on Blake Kendrick getting time elsewhere.
2005
Looking at the chart you see quite clearly that 2005 was an exact repeat at the LBer position of 2004 except Archie McDaniel nailed down the starting spot at rover over Renuel Greene.
Recruiting-wise we only brought in Jordie Richardson, who moved to the offensive side of the ball. This, along with all the JUCO guys is going to bite us later.
2006
The 2006 season marked a big change as we changed defensive coordinators from Carl "Wow" Torbush to Gary Darnell. Darnell brought with him a 4-2-5 defense, as opposed to the base 4-3 we were running previously.
What this did was take a linebacker off the field and replaces him with a WHIP, who was essentially a safety that could come up in the box when needed. I did not include the WHIP in the recruiting experience chart, because almost every guy we stuck in that role was a defensive back, but I did stick him in the game-by-game starter chart because I was interested in seeing who we used and if we used any linebackers.
I think a strong reason we moved to the 4-2-5 was because we didn't have enough LBers on the team to put together a legitimate 2-deep that would be productive.
We also hit the JUCO route again in 2006, thankfully, and we landed two solid guys in Mark Dodge and Misi Tupe. They combined for a handful of All-Conference awards before they left, albeit only two years later (leaving a hole more quickly than if we could find some high school recruits).
Somewhat related note....I was watching the Rose Bowl on Thursday (USC v. Penn State) while I was working on this piece and I remembered that we lost out on a big LBer recruit from Dallas, named Michael Morgan, just before signing day in 2006. I was curious how he was doing.
G/GS ========= 2006 RS 2007 11/0 2008 11/1He is currently a RS-Sophomore so it's still too early to say he could have been a star focal point of our offense when at USC he's just another body, but I can guarantee he would have started at least 15 games for us by now.
2007
The JUCOs (Dodge and Tupe) from the previous recruiting class pay off big time here getting the majority of playing time at LBer. Matt Featherston, a converted DE, is the primary back-up and Anthony Lewis played in mostly run stop situations.
That was about everyone we saw on the field because the depth was just so thin.
2008
Dodge and Tupe are gone so we're now playing a bunch of inexperienced guys. Do you remember me mentioning that 1 man recruiting class in '05 (who ended up moving to the other side of the ball)? Well, the '05 class would have been either juniors or seniors in 2008.
We also have a new defensive coordinator, Joe Kines, who kind of changed up the defensive formations as the season went on, as you can see from the game-by-game starter chart.
If you go back up to the recruiting contribution chart and run your finger down the 2008 column you'll see how completely decimated the LBer situation was. Going into 2008 our entire roster had a total of 1 career start at LBer. That is how depending exclusively on JUCO guys will eventually catch up with you and hurt the program.
Garrick Williams and Von Miller both moved to LBer (from WR and DE, respectively) to join Featherston with mixed results.
Johnathan Haynes, a walk-on, started at the beginning of the season for us and by the end of the year we ended up having to move Alton Dixon, in the middle of his senior season, from safety up to LBer. The last 3 or 4 games we saw Miller move back to DE.
Billy Chavis was recruited as an athlete and moved around to several positions with LBer being the stop just before the season started. He was going to redshirt but we pulled it midseason, along with true freshman Ricky Cavanaugh's RS, but neither saw very much time there at all. I didn't, and still don't, understand that move and I wish we had kept the shirts on both of them. I suppose the coaches were hoping to get more productivity from the youngsters than we were getting from the rest of the roster but that didn't happen.
The Future
So where does all this leave us in the future? I flat out have no idea.Alton Dixon, who ended up being our best LBer graduated so we're pretty much back to the exact same group we had to start the season in 2008 plus freshmen. We also pick up Cole Graybill, who transferred to A&M from Arizona before last year, but he had to sit out 2008 due to the NCAA transfer rules.
I don't see us digging out of the LBer situation quickly. The earliest I see us having the opportunity to field a good linebacker corps is 2011 and in order to do that our 2009 freshmen need to be All-Conference players by the time they're upperclassmen.
This is a situation that scares me more than the OL.