UCLA Football: Survival of the Defense-Linebackers
Continuing my series of how I believe the UCLA Football defense will look and function in 2017, we move onto the linebacking corps.
With graduation, and the NFL draft, this UCLA Football team will lose 153 total tackles from it’s linebacking corps. That’s a hefty number no matter how you look at it. However closer inspection shows us that 119 of those tackles belong to NFL Draft prospect Jayon Brown.
So while the Bruins will have to replace four contributors among that group, only Brown was a consistent starter. Good news is that the Bruins have a logjam of very talented linebackers on the roster.
The bad news is almost all of them are inexperienced.
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Who’s Gone: Jayon Brown, Deon Hollins, Isaako Savaiinaea, Cameron Judge
Who’s New: Rahyme Johnson, Mique Juarez
BreakDown:
If I had to say where the weakness of this defense is I would have to say it is the linebacking corps. Now this isn’t to say this is a weak unit. The Bruins have a such a stack of talented backers that it makes my mouth drool. They are however for the most part, green.
We could have made the same argument for the defensive line given they lost three out of four starters. However the defensive line returns a number of guys who rotated in last season and will also get a major lift from one of the best defensive talents in the country in Jaelan Phillips.
To find the leader of this group look no further than Kenny Young who should take over in the middle. Young has plenty of starts under his belt from the past two seasons but now will have to be “the” guy after Brown occupied that role the past two seasons. Built like a prototypical MLB, Young has improved his game and I thought the light came on for him midway through the 2016 season. He will need to carry that over into 2017.
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Flanking him on one side will likely be Josh Woods. Woods has developed both physically and mentally during his time. In his snaps last season Woods racked up 26 tackles on the year in six starts and seeing time in 11 games. He’s athletic enough to stick with TE’s and RB’s out of the backfield and is aware in zone coverage underneath. But he isn’t just a coverage LB. Woods has the take on strength to stone and defeat linemen and is more than willing to stick his nose into the trash. He’s my mancrush at the LB position this year.
On the other side the Bruins could see a surprise player emerge after a position change. Dechaun Holiday came in as a very highly regarded player but has really struggled to see playing time in his college career. He’s up to around 225lbs and is still an athlete.
Now I’m of the opinion that just because a guy is a great athlete that doesn’t mean he’s a great football player. Holiday brings a lot of potential to the table. As a former safety we know he has the ability to cover in ways that are rare for linebackers. He can match up with the type of athletic TE’s that are so prevalent in today’s offenses. However there are plenty of questions too.
How will he handle taking on blocks and shedding them? Can he be physical enough at the point of attack? How will he fare reading his keys and attacking down hill? For the sake of this group he will need to answer those in resounding fashion. From all accounts he has looked good in his move during Spring practice.