Previously: Podcast 15.0A, 15.0B, 15.0C. The Story. Quarterback. Running Back. Wide Receiver. Tight End. Interior OL. Defensive Interior. Edge.

LINEBACKER: LINEBACKING IS HARD

Not a Depth Chart

Middle Linebacker	Yr.	Weakside Linebacker	Yr.
Junior Colson	Jr.	Michael Barrett	Sr.**
Jimmy Rolder	So.	Ernest Hausmann	So.
Micah Pollard	So.	Jaydon Hood	So.*

It's a fair bet the plurality of position-specific praying in 2022 was for the linebackers. Michigan went into the season with two playable options, one of those a true sophomore who could explode in any direction, and lost the other to a thigh injury for the whole of it. Options past Colson and NHG were Don Brown viper Michael Barrett, RB-ish Brown recruit whom Notre Dame, Wisconsin, and everybody at Michigan's spring game thought better left at RB Kalel Mullings, and freshmen. By the bowl game they were asking a former starting safety to move down.

And now? Different story. The twitching ball of azidoazide azide has reached the age of draftability. The viper used the opportunity to turn himself into a bona fide WLB. The thigh guy was sent down to Charlotte to make room for the top free agent in the portal. Last year's semi-playable freshman is now a playable sophomore trying to hold off a Don Brown doom squirrel we were getting ready to write off this time in 2022. The guy everyone wanted to play running back? He actually gets to play running back!

Depending on what happens with the immigrant infante's irises, this unit is headed towards something between pretty good and 12-15 Christmases.

SHADY'S BACK

It may or may not make a difference beyond recruiting, but the guy who rivaled Santa in gifts he's brought to Michigan reputably also knows his way around the second level.

You said five, so I'm here for five. [Barron]

Once and future Chris Partridge returned to Michigan this offseason after a rocky attempt to coordinate a defense at Ole Miss. The top recruiter among all the Harbaugh lieutenants who've come through Ann Arbor, Partridge was also the linebacking coach during the position's best years in the history of our charting. Granted, they had Devin Bush Jr. (a Partridge recruit) for most of those years. Events not related to Bush:

• Jabrill Peppers (a Partridge player in HS) was a Heisman candidate as a Viper.
• Ben Gedeon developed into a solid starter.
• Mike McCray hit his ceiling.
• Devin Gil became a serviceable Big Ten player.
• Josh Ross had an extremely promising early career.
• Khaleke Hudson did too.

Things got a lot worse in the years after Partridge. One reason to think they might take a leap forward is there isn't another LBs coach in the MGoBlog era with that kind of track record. Another is they have an elite athlete on hand who's badly in need of coaching.

[After THE JUMP: Back again.]

MIDDLE LINEBACKER: COVERING GRASS

RATING: 4 but we are taking the average of 1 and 7

This was a TFL, for those of you thinking he was about to get spun for all the yards here. [Barron]

He wasn't ready. The unfairest moment in recent linebacking was thrusting a true freshman JUNIOR COLSON [recruiting profile] on the field in the 2021 opener. Here is Sam Webb moments before that happened.

One source mentioned the belief that “Junior Colson will be an All American before he leaves here. He doesn’t know what he’s doing right now, but somehow he’s always around the football.”

The onetime Haitian orphan committed to Michigan on the 7th anniversary of the day he finally flew to the United States, which was a few days before his new brother said "this is a football." This meant he could speak Creole with fellow Haitian native Mike Sainristil. It did not at all signify Colson was ready to play linebacker in the Big Ten.

Colson made enough good plays as a freshman to fill a highlight reel, but the charting got ugly, especially in the back half of the season when his coaches heaped more responsibility on him. Maryland discovered they could run sprint zones—a ploy usually reserved for teams with sluggish MLBs—because Colson's reaction time wasn't quick enough to prevent a guard from getting out to him.

Linebacking is hard, and unless we're talking about David Harris, Devin Bush, or some of the players he played with, breaking even is fine. My charting had Colson at +64.5/-94 for a –29.5 on the season. Pro Football Focus was even harsher than I was, giving Colson a 48.5 (50 is playable) for 2021, and a 34.4 for his Georgia performance.

This was hardly unexpected. Even Bush had to mostly sit behind Ben Gedeon for a year. Harris popped as a redshirt junior. If you wanna go back further: Jarrett Irons, Sam Sword, Steve Morrison, Dhani Jones, Larry Foote, Ian Gold…all those guys redshirted. Linebacking is hard. That didn't stop people from projecting the former 4.5-star to put together an All-American highlight reel in 2022. In their defense, he did.

Highlight reels are not representative samples, however. We predicted a solid starter who would balance the routine mistakes with routine insanity.

We didn't think it would be this loud. However many good or bad events of Colson's you're remembering from last season, you're not remembering enough of them. Some of this was the Ravens defense putting more on linebackers than most, some of it opponents identifying a weakness. Mostly it was just Janus Colson.

2022 Junior Colson
Opponent	Snaps	+	-	Tot	Notes
Colorado State	45	9	4	+5	Now runs 75% in the right direction.
Hawai'i	30	2	0	+2	Was in position to help but DL got there first.
Connecticut	40	7.5	3.5	+4	I'm sorry I ever doubted.
Maryland	70	15.5	16.5	-1	Mouton-esque.
Iowa	53	4.5	15	-10.5	Maybe he thought grass was Petras's favorite target.
Indiana	62	9	11	-2	More like Janus Colson amirite?
Penn State	47	6	7.5	-1.5	Positives were more visible than the negatives this week.
Michigan State	52	7.5	4	+3.5	Barely tested in coverage but I will take it!!!
Rutgers	36	4	8	-4	Wrong gap but maybe letting him roam was the plan.
Nebraska	39	8.5	7	+1.5	Still managing to hide his negatives well.
Illinois	57	15.5	13.5	+2	The uUuUuUuUuUUuUusual.
Ohio State	61	4	9	-5	Four big miscues, two big plays.
Purdue	72	9	1.5	+7.5	NOT the usual: made this from mostly +1s and +0.5s!
TCU	66	6.5	10	-3.5	Worst mistake of the year at the worst possible time.
2022 TOTALS	730	109	112	-3

PFF was more reactive to negatives, coming up with 46.1, 45.7, and 54.5 scores against Iowa, Illinois, and Ohio State. They also gave him a 75.5 overall, with an 86 for tackling (it's true he is a very good tackler). Max Chadwick says he "has the tools" to become one of the top linebackers in the class. Meanwhile their lead draft analyst Trevor Sikkema has Colson the third linebacker and first Michigan defender drafted at #73. And I guess if you draw a line…

The NFL can't wait to draft him. They love him. ESPN's list of top 100 players had Colson #56, one spot behind Will Johnson, the only other Michigan defender to make it. Mock drafts have Colson hovering around the 4th round, 100th overall next year, with one or two projecting him to the 1st round. Pro Football Network had him go 19th in one of theirs, but the writeup emphasized the projection:

does have the necessary upside to demand attention as the season approaches. Colson is still relatively raw in coverage and sometimes relies on his physicality to a fault. But foundationally, he’s a compact and athletic second-level defender who brings great twitch and closing burst, and his tackling numbers help corroborate his finishing ability.

To triple-bogey three holes and still come out just above par means you're doing something nobody else on the course can, and yep, checks out.

That is a middle linebacker winning man coverage on a slot receiver (Taye Barber) who was recently one of the last guys waived by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That is INSANE. One of the reasons Michigan was even in a spot to come back against TCU was getting his hand on this ball to tip this to Rod Moore.

Then why did you hate him? I said linebacking is hard. Matt D suggested last year that Colson was the Jett Howard of this Michigan team and I said no that's Colson in 2021. Colson still played with reckless abandon at times, but that's a part of his game that bends what the offense can and can't get away with around him.

But there are times when he pla yed like a freshman, and those go to two plays that ultimately cost Michigan the TCU game. Here he had a TFL lined up until he wandered into a gap with two teammates already in it.

And then there's the dagger, the crossing route that you remember for DJ Turner missing the tackle. A user named contown on Sam's message board has been going over the most consequential plays on the season, and when he looked back at that one he found Colson failing to chip.

Moore is coming wide enough that the Center won't stop him. He's going to hit Duggan, Michigan has this. BUT...Colson has frozen mid play. After looking the crosser up, Colson has stopped in his tracks, deciding not to touch Johnston. Instead, he's standing square to the QB at the LOS. Next:

The full thing (reminder that you have the option not to hit play):

I didn't even catch that one, but I did catch a lot of what I started calling "Covering Grass" last year as Colson dropped to a spot and stood in it instead of reacting to receivers and routes.

On the other hand, the athlete that some people wanted to turn into a part-safety/part-Uche is definitely in there, ready to slink into your backfield and ruin a drive in a Svedberg even if you designed the play to remove him.

That had its moments, like this RIDICULOUS stop on an Inverted Veer.

#25 the blitzing LB in the middle

I just…that is…Wow. He's getting read, he's blitzing, he's got a blocker outside of him ready to pin him if he gets too far inside, and he's going for the quarterback. This should be dead linebacker city, a –2 issued to somebody, and recriminations about entitled youth these days. Then Colson just casually shows up on the RB like a Gen Z voter. Yep, registered at the clerk's office on my birthday. Figured out housing for next year ahead of time so the address would match my license. Both sides of the ballot? Of course. Want me to recite the ballot proposals? Did my research on the school board candidates too. Where's my sticker?

So what comes next? Uh?

We saw his non-chartable effect on spread teams (PSU and IU in particular) last year as Michigan was able to get away with Colson operating in huge spaces. It's very different from Harrell, but still a kind of insurance that they're not going to play without. And while he plays like a wide-eyed child on the field, it's well to remember his off-the-field profile is "most mature-for-his-age human ever" with a spoonful of Papa Toussaint's eye twinkle:

…and a pinch of Jean-Jacques Dessalines.

Being able to dominate and see the light come out of their eyes. You see a light just fade away, their smile kind of die down.

We've seen how effective he can be as a pass-rusher.

We've seen how well he wrangles guys down. It took his family two years to get him cleared to move to America, and it's supposed to take linebackers two years to figure out what the hell is going on. At least it was that way before RPOs, switches, OL trundling 5 yards downfield on play-action, and all of the weird things you're supposed to know to play the Swiss Army Knife position on a Ravens-style hell-on-linebackers defense. Colson has big eyes; how much he can fill them with irises will decide if he's an All-American, Mouton, or anything in between.

BACKUPS

…are shared with WLB so we'll cover them together.

WEAKSIDE LINEBACKER: SHOW UP THE WORLD

And your friends all sing along and they love you. [Barron]

RATING: 4

If Colson's progression last year was maddeningly erratic, that of MICHAEL BARRETT was pleasantly linear.

2022 Michael Barrett
Opponent	Snaps	+	-	Tot	Notes
Colorado State	27	7	4.5	+2.5	Good weapon on blitzes, still not a linebacker.
Hawai'i	15	6	1	+5	Fascinating weapon even if a bit deficient at pure LB things.
Connecticut	22	6	2.5	+3.5	Actually getting more comfortable at LB things.
Maryland	40	4.5	4.5	-	Stopped the 2PA, should have been in for the last drive.
Iowa	42	5.5	3.5	+2	Way more aggressive!
Indiana	55	6	4.5	+1.5	Stuck his nose in there to win back the TD bust.
Penn State	45	4.5	3	+1.5	He can blitz. PSU couldn't capitalize when he bought PA.
Michigan State	35	9.5	4	+5.5	Strong day in coverage vs TEs and TE-like RBs.
Rutgers	40	10.5	1.5	+9	Excellent day, and most of that wasn't the INTs.
Nebraska	46	10	2.5	+7.5	Another very good day. Is he tracking to stardom?
Illinois	62	9.5	9.5	-	Mental errors vs power, not the bad day we predicted.
Ohio State	77	7	3	+4	Was locked in, got rolled over by big backs.
Purdue	63	13	9.5	+3.5	Very rough start, came back to finish positive.
TCU	61	7.5	2.5	+5	Just a good player now. Definitely his kind of game.
2022 TOTALS	630	106.5	56	+50.5	Is linebacker.

Adjust for difficult and that is a man getting slowly better at his job. Illinois was supposed to be kryptonite for converted safety-linebackers, but he held up except for some mental errors against things they planned for him.

At the onset of 2020 Barrett was looking like a fine heir to Brown's hybrid LB/safety Viper position. He was too light for linebacker, and didn't seem to possess the instincts, and opponents exploited this a bit by putting him in positions where he'd get outmuscled. Barrett also had some Gemon Green Disease in his early career, where he'd be in position on a ball only for a tight end to muscle it away from him. With a new defense and not a lot of linebacking options, Barrett was game to try out WLB. The result was an affirmation that he belonged at Viper.

What happened to Viper? That position didn't totally go away in 2021. When Indiana came to town with a QB run option offense, Macdonald responded with a 4-2-5 (I called it a 4-3 to differentiate it from the nickel package) that used Barrett in his old role.

Later in the season Michigan also deployed their leftover hybrid as a linebacker on passing downs, where Barrett's well-honed edge instincts served him well, with the bonus of Barrett's excellent blitzing skills on the field. Before 2022 we were advocating for more 4-3 and 3-3-5 stuff that utilized Barrett's hybridity.

Had they been able to afford such a luxury, or played anyone who still ran a QB-run offense, doubtless Barrett would have reprised this role. But with Nikhai Hill-Green out for the year, Barrett was forced to become the full-time WLB. The coverage and Viperish acceleration translated immediately:

…as did Barrett's well-established threat as a blitzer who gets skinny through contact.

While the nonconference opponents were in no position to attack any other way, as Michigan got into the meatier parts of the schedule, Barrett's strength issues and unfamiliarity with operating between the tackles began to show. Barret wasn't in Colson's league as a tacker, and he was the culprit for not one but two Indiana Offensive Achievement™s, getting called out by Joel Klatt on the latter.

Even by then such events were getting progressively rarer. A pair of interceptions to cancel Rutgers signaled to the fanbase that Mike Barrett: Linebacker had arrived. This site and PFF got there a week ahead of them, when Mel Tucker came in with a gameplan built on tight ends and misdirection, and Barrett wasn't having any of it. By Ohio State he was a good linebacker, full stop.

Beside [Colson], Michael Barrett had another good game. He was by far the more actively involved linebacker, and seemed to feed on Michigan's momentum the way the senior leaders of old guy teams tell you they did when they speak at alumni clubs decades later. Barrett's going to be wearing a jacket and sitting on a stool with a microphone in Philadelphia one day, and someone's going to ask him about The Game in 2022, and he's going to say that first throw to the flat early he came in a little tentatively, but the next time they tried it on him he was just feeling it.

#23 the top LB, feeling it.

In his head he'll probably also remember meeting Trayanum or Williams at 1 yard and then going for a bit of a ride. That's life.

He's still kind of a viper even if he's linebacker-sized. Barrett hit 230 last year and once he knew where to stick his nose in he was effective. This year he checked in at 239, which is now past the median weight for LBs in the conference. Still, like many LBs of the modern age, when a lineman does get on him, or when he comes up against a bigger back, Barrett is still susceptible to getting trundled like a safety. It helps that Michigan had guys like Mazi Smith up front. OSU mooseback Chip Trayanum gave Barrett the business. A few more pounds probably isn't making a big difference. You could also say this about most LBs today, and the ones you can't say it about don't wear gloves and cameo in Donovan Edwards touchdowns.

He's still a viper in coverage. The second Rutgers interception was luck but the first showed off Barrett's feel for flat coverage.

This is the tradeoff you get; now that Barrett can play WLB, it's easy to shift his job on a given play back to that of a slot defender. When reviewing Michigan's switch coverages for his HTTV article this summer Cody Alexander (Art of X) noted Michigan often gave Barrett a zone normally defended by a cornerback/nickel. They also liked to threaten to blitz then back out and cover a lot of ground.

Where Colson is raw, Barrett has retained all of his coverage training from his previous job and has no trouble adding new things. Remember the chip that Colson didn't make against TCU? Contown noticed that Barrett got the same play against Illinois at just as crucial a moment.

However, when confronted with this against man coverage on 3rd or 4th down, Michigan has had that mugged LB pop out and make contact with the crossing route. Why? Because passing downs with man coverage is a great time to run crossing routes, and a LB aligned over the C at the LOS is a great tool for messing with crossers. Case in point, Mike Barrett in Play #20 in this series:

Barrett has Brown in coverage in C0, but as soon as he sees Brown is staying in to block, he pops out to look up the crosser, he is not green dogging.

He is old and wise. This is what you get with a 5th year senior. Barrett thought it a good enough reason to return:

“Towards the end of the year, I felt like I was playing at my best. That was kind of a thing that went into my decision to come back.”

If the NFL needs a full year to be sure he can play linebacker in the 2020s, good by me, but the deep fans don't really think that's the full story. Like Sainristil, Zinter, Keegan, and Corum, Barrett has ascended to the "my dude" circle of Michigan players whose presence validates our own. In another timeline he could have been a quarterback for Georgia Tech, a running back for 100 FBS schools, or a hybrid for one of the schools that still does that. He's the kind of special teams player who will need to be mentioned when we get to previewing The Teams. He's probably going to be the last Michigan football player to have been born in the 20th century. Dude should be so done with all of this by now, not hanging out with kids who still think everything they come across goes in their mouths. And yet.

He's turned himself into whatever this program needed again and again, and when that paid off he was the guy carrying the flag. If any insider comes along wanting to replace Barrett in the lineup he should be punched in the face told politely no.

BUT WE'LL TAKE A THIRD

If you can tackle Corum in space you can play. [Fuller]

Count me among those who thought Michigan would have been fine going into the season with Hill-Green their 3rd LB, but I'm not even remotely mad they went into the portal for another Big Ten team's most promising rising sophomore, ERNEST HAUSMANN [transfer profile]. Born in Uganda, Hausmann grew up in Nebraska and was the first guy to commit to the Huskers' class of 2022.

Linebacker is hard. On3 was the new site on the block and differentiated itself from the competition, taking a stand on a middling 3-star ATH in the middle of the country by adding the recently converted nickel/receiver to the tail end of their top-300.

Hausmann is a natural, explosive athlete. Most highly drafted linebackers play both ways in high school. That’s the case with Hausmann as he stars as a wide receiver and linebacker for his Columbus (Neb.) team. At 6-foot-3, 205 pounds, Hausmann is an effortless, smooth mover who is comfortable playing in space and dropping into coverage. He closes quickly as a cover down defender and finishes with authority. We see the athleticism, ball skills and playmaking ability show up at receiver.

There was immediate camp noise, followed by a move up to LB3, and then a hard meeting of rubber and road when the two guys ahead of started picking up injuries. Hausmann was barely 210 pounds, in his second year of playing the position, and as lost as everyone else in red. Except while his program was crumbling, Hausmann was starting to click. Both Michigan and the people who chart Michigan games noticed the kid flying up to bring down JJ McCarthy.

Brian charted him for two Hat+ events. More importantly, the negatives offsetting such things were mostly of the "is 210 pounds" variety, versus the "went the wrong way" kind. Hausmann also got more snaps in than freshman Colson, fwiw. 247's Josh Pate:

Sometimes, because so many guys are going in the portal, you put a grade on him, and then you say 'okay that's a tentative grade.' It's kind of like when you're rating tornadoes—that's an EF2, we could bump it up to an EF3 later. Well, Ernest Hausmann got *bumped up.* He was like an EF4, now he's an EF5.

247 had him the #1 player in the portal when he committed to Michigan.

Hausmann excels in space. But can he cover it? You saw him bring down McCarthy above; that part of his game was evident earlier in the year as well. If he has to step in for Barrett or Colson, Hausmann seems to have the speed and athleticism to be a similar kind of menace to the flats. There are no Mike McCrays here.

Coverage however is more than just the athletic stuff. Earlier last season teams that couldn't blow through Nebraska's bad DTs were targeting Hausmann in coverage. This could be chalked up to playing linebacker as a freshman, but I'm sure the DTs had something to do with it, as well as the fear of being late to engage when you're 210 pounds. As they've done for Barrett and Colson, Michigan's DL will have to grant Hausmann some reprieve.

The spring game didn't give us much of a sample size but Hausmann was covering more than grass. This tip was an interception if accurate, because Hausmann anticipated a curl route above him after the drag went by and took two steps towards the hash.

Nebraska man jumps Iowa's favorite route combo.

Then Harrell failed to pick up the TE and gave up the ensuing 4th & 5.

Michigan had him on the starter line after spring. They also had him at 237 pounds, two behind Barrett and 10 behind Colson. I found it interesting that post-spring talk put Hausmann with the above two as opposed to the bucket with classmate Jimmy Rolder. Since fall camp however things have settled back to what we expected when Hausmann came in: behind Colson and Barrett, but clearly ahead of the other underclassmen.

“Ernest is doing a great job,” Minter said earlier this fall. “He’s picked up our defense. He's a film junkie, he has raised the level of play in that room. I think, really, just by him coming in and his mentality, the way he approaches it. All of a sudden, [Mike Barrett] is playing at a really high level. [Junior Colson] is playing at a high level. Competition is what breeds having guys going to get better.

Expectations for this year are higher than Colson's 2022, rotating liberally with the starters and finishing in the positive. Partridge describes him as a part-Colson/part-Barrett…

Ernest just sees the game so well, he studies it so well. He anticipates really well. Practices hard, prepares. He's kind of like an in-between Mike and Junior. He plays the run and the pass and does everything at a good level.

…and capable of playing either spot. Sounds like a great insurance policy, with a chance to pop into a star. If he has to start maybe Barrett can play some SAM again.

BACKUPS

Pictured: The third-most memorable Cade Stover target of this game. [Barron]

Michigan's own increasingly playable freshman last year was JIMMY ROLDER [recruiting profile], a late riser Michigan yoinked out of the Illini's clutches before it became de rigueur. Illinois actually had him committed for baseball, but Rolder sprouted during the COVID break, and started playing linebacker during the delayed season of 2021. By fall Purdue, Ohio State, Iowa, Cincy, and Wisconsin were all jostling with Michigan, who had space and playing time available. The scouting said his tackling was advanced, his athleticism praise-worthy, his impact palpable. Harbaugh referred to him as a "Big Ten linebacker" which I take to mean he's pretty big. But given the backstory ideally he was due to redshirt.

Since Mullings wasn't coming on, that wasn't in the cards. Rolder played in every game, put a few non-conf opponents on their asses, and started to look plausible by mid-season.

Around this point he admitted to the Daily he was still swimming:

But how does [Minter's scheme] compare to the scheme he ran in high school?

“It’s not even close, I ran like two coverages, maybe five blitzes,” Rolder said. “This is nowhere close to that, you check up maybe five blitzes or two coverages in one play.”

One of the things people do with "Big Ten linebackers" these days is run a 404 Tite and have them line up over the tight end. Rolder didn't get the assignment.

Nevertheless, he took on a greater role against Purdue, whence he managed to keep his head above water, until the tempo of TCU pulled him back under.

2022 Jimmy Rolder
Opponent	Snaps	+	-	Tot	Notes
Colorado State	14	1.5	1.5	-	Some good, freshman bad.
Hawai'i	22	3.5	6	-2.5	Freshman LBs should be on the field.
Connecticut	7	0	1	-1	Not making the rotation yet.
Maryland	0	0	0	-	DNP
Iowa	7	2	2	-	Play 1: Wrong gap. Play 2: Right gap (same gap).
Indiana	16	1.5	4	-2.5	Can see the future, also it's not now.
Penn State	4	0.5	0.5	-	Might be time to pass Mullings.
Michigan State	0	0	0	-	DNP
Rutgers	14	3.5	0	+3.5	Showed late, maybe see what they've got this week?
Nebraska	10	0	0	-	DNC
Illinois	3	1	0	+1	One drive was the bad drive, not on him.
Ohio State	16	0	3	-3	Soon as he learns Tite he's serviceable.
Purdue	28	1.5	2	-0.5	Report to the rotation kid, you made it.
TCU	13	1	4	-3	True freshman stuff when TCU tempo'd.
2022 TOTALS	154	16	24	-8	Freshman.

Evidently Michigan felt comfortable enough with Rolder after Purdue to let Mullings go back to offense. Since they also invited former starting safety RJ Moten to try out at linebacker, that might have been more about Mullings.

ol' Not Leon Franklin demonstrating his not being Leon Franklinness for announcers. [Barron]

Rolder's offseason did not produce the encouraging notes you want from your 4-star who played 150+ snaps before he was supposed to. He was on the business end of a good chunk of Team Blue (Ben Hall, Kalel Mullings, Raheem Anderson)'s eye-opening run game. When names were listed Rolder was clearly in the backup bucket. Samples from Zach Shaw:

Contact courage is a strong point for Michigan's linebacker room, and the Wolverines feel like they have three effective starters, and that's to say nothing about Rolder, Pollard and others behind them.

Minter:

And then there’s Jimmy Rolder, Micah Pollard, Jaydon Hood. Those guys are all developing, progressing, trying to get to that, ‘Okay, who's going to be the fifth guy? Who can we give some snaps to?’ Tremendous competition.

Partridge:

I do consider all three of guys, Mike Barrett, Junior Colson and Ernest Hausmann starters for us.

Since fall camp opened there's been more talk of JAYDON HOOD [recruiting profile]. It started with Mike Barrett:

I feel like he's made a big step from last year. He's coming along really fast, learning and being able to help us step into that next spot.

Minter named him before one of the "starters." Lorenz confirmed Hood is was tracking past Rolder as LB4 as Harbaugh agreed Hood had "inserted himself most" (or asserted, it's not clear) compared to where he was a year ago.

This is wonderful news for Hood, a Don Brown Doom Squirrel™ whose star has been falling since he up-transferred to a super-elite Florida high school and got lost on the bench. Passed by a pair of freshman last year, it was starting to get Late Early until the fall talk began. The DBDS archetype (see: Devin Bush, Cam McGrone) is a running back-shaped accelerator who's as likely to wind up gripping the ballcarrier with his knees as his hands. Hood only played a handful of snaps last year, doing his part to prevent a second touchdown against Hawai'i.

The other freshman from last year is son-of-an-NFL-er MICAH POLLARD [recruiting profile], a Jaylen Harrell-esqe DE/LB as a recruit whose name started appearing in his coaches' mouths last fall. That was a good sign for Pollard's future, and a far worse one for LB depth last year. Pollard had three notable moments last year before. One was getting to this play, which showed some speed. The second was popping a blocker to wrangle down a CSU cutback. The third was combining with Keon Sabb for Hawai'i's one score. He technically played in six games so ideally they use this year to get his redshirt back. Between the guys above, plus 5th year baseball player JOEY VELAZQUEZ, three freshmen who can play in four games apiece, and walk-ons, I figure they have the depth to swing that now. If not it's because Pollard is probably LB4 next year.