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Who are the best linebackers coming into the 2018 college football season? Here are the projected 30 top players.
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Preview 2018: Top 30 Linebackers
Based on projections for this college season – and not necessarily based on pro talent and potential – here are the 30 best linebackers coming into the season.
30. Fermin Silva, Sr. FIU
Is he really going to stay at linebacker? A fantastic defensive end last season – with 45 tackles with seven sacks and 14 tackles for loss- he was moved to outside linebacker this spring, and now he’s going to be turned loose. At 6-2 and 235 pounds, he’s a tweener who’ll live in the backfield.
29. Ulysees Gilbert, Sr. Akron
A bit undersized, the 6-1, 225-pounder plays big, earning All-MAC honors for the second year in a row with 140 tackles and three picks as the leader of the East champion. He came up with more plays behind the line as a sophomore – with 11.5 tackles for loss and 121 stops – but he picked off three passes last season.
28. Bryan London, Jr. Texas State
One of the nation’s best unsung tacklers, the 6-2, 232-pound veteran followed up his 142 tackle, ten tackle-for-loss season with another 91 stops and four tackles for loss. One of the team’s few bright spots, he had a run late in the year with 35 tackles over three games.
27. Ronley Lakalaka, Sr. San Diego State
The all-star leader of the great Aztec defense over the last few years, he started to get into the backfield more last season and now should do even more from his spot on the outside. He’s not all that big at 6-0 and 225 pounds, but he hits everything, making 83 tackles with three sacks last season.
26. David Reese, Jr. Florida
Okay, okay, the leading tackler of the great D should probably be a lot higher than this, but he’s more steady than sensational. The All-SEC star in the classroom came up with 102 tackles with ten tackles for loss as a 6-1, 239-pound rock on the inside.
25. De’Jon Harris, Jr. Arkansas
The anchor of the D for the new coaching staff, Harris is a 6-0, 239-pound thumper who get get behind the line, too. He led the Hogs with 115 tackles with 3.5 sacks and 8.5 tackles for loss, and he was consistently sound for a team that didn’t have many bright spots.
24. Terez Hall, Sr. Missouri
Good as a reserve over the first part of his career, it all kicked in last season as he made 85 tackles with 12.5 tackles for loss on his role on the outside. At 6-2 and 230 pounds, he’s built to hold up against the run, but watch out as he grows into more of a pass rusher.
23. Chase Hancock, Sr. Marshall
Just 6-2 and 221 pounds, he’s not all that big, but he can fly. Good two years ago, he took his game up a few notches with 128 tackles with two sacks and 9.5 tackles for loss. He might not be a giant run-stuffer, but he gets in on everything and is sensational in pass coverage.
22. Kendall Joseph, Sr. Clemson
Undersized but ultra-reliable, the 6-0, 225-pounder will be in charge of cleaning everything up his amazing defensive front won’t get to. He followed up a 106-tackle, 11.5 tackle-for-loss season for the national champion with 96 stops and five tackles for loss. Consider him a lock for 100 tackles.
21. Thomas Barber, Jr. Minnesota
Big, tough, and with range, the son of Gopher legend Marion Barber and brother of Marion Barber III led the way with 115 tackles with 10.5 tackles for loss and an interception. At 6-1 and 233 pounds, he eats up everything, and he has the quickness to get behind the line more.
![]() 20. Dorian Etheridge, Soph. Louisville
Thrown to the wolves as a true freshman, the 6-3, 233-pounder more than came through, leading the Cardinals with 83 tackles with three tackles for loss. Consistent and with the versatility to play anywhere in the corps, this will be his defense to run for the next few seasons.
19. Dakota Allen, Sr. Texas Tech
To put it mildly, it’s been an interesting run. Amazing early on in his career, he was an Academic All-Big 12 performer as well as an 87-tackle key cog, was off the team for a bit, went the JUCO route, and then came back to Lubbock to make 102 tackles with two sacks in an all-star season on the outside. He’s only 6-2 and 224 pounds, but he can ball.
18. Jeffrey Allison, Jr. Fresno State
Who was one of the biggest parts of the Fresno State turnaround? The 6-0, 250-pound Allison can get into the backfield from time to time, but it’s his job to be a rock against the run. The All-Mountain West performer and leader of the Bulldog D made 126 tackles with everything working around him on the inside.
17. Porter Gustin, Sr. USC
This will be fun. The 6-5, 255-pound killer of a pass rusher missed most of last season with a variety of injuries, but now he’s right again. The outside linebacker made 68 tackles with 5.5 sacks and 13 tackles for loss two years ago, and now, watch out. He might be a threat for double-digit sacks.
16. Ty Summers, Sr. TCU
It takes a special type of linebacker to be a four-year leader in TCU’s 4-2-5 alignment, and that’s been Summers. The 6-2, 235-pounder couldn’t match the 121 tackles of last year – he came up with 64 – but he did more in other areas, generating a career-high four sacks with eight tackles for loss and five broken up passes.
15. David Long, Jr. West Virginia
When he’s healthy, he’s one of the Big 12’s most productive defenders. However, at 5-11 and 221 pounds, he takes a beating. He missed time last year and this offseason with a shoulder injury, but he still came up with 76 tackles last year with four sacks and 16.5 tackles for loss. Quick and active, he’s terrific in pass coverage, too.
14. Te’von Coney, Sr. Notre Dame
The 6-1, 238-pound tone-setting hitter in the middle grew into the job over the last few years. Solid as a sophomore, he stuffed everything once he settled in, coming up with 116 tackles with three sacks a and 13 tackles for loss,
13. Jahlani Tavai, Sr. Hawaii
The all-around hitting machine for the Hawaii defense for the last three years, now he’s about to make it three straight All-Mountain West seasons as – as long as he’s healthy – he finishes his career with over 400 stops. At 6-4 and 245 pounds, he has excellent size and lives behind the line, with 15.5 career sacks and 35.5 tackles for loss. Last year, he followed up a 129-tackle season with 124 more hits.
12. Joe Dineen, Sr. Kansas
He’s trying. There might not be a lot to love about Kansas football over the last few years, but the 6-2, 230-pound Dineen has done what he can for the defense. Coming off an injury-plagued 2016, he turned in an All-Big 12 season with 137 tackles with 2.5 sacks and 25 tackles for loss.
11. K’Lavon Chaisson, Soph. LSU
Teammate Devin White will get more of the national love, but he 6-4, 240-pound Chaisson is a big-time player, too. The former defensive end prospect showed a glimpse of his potential with 27 tackles with two sacks and 4.5 tackles for loss as a freshman. This spring, he became unblockable – get ready for him to become one of the national breakout stars.
Big Mac For CommunicationNEXT: 2018 Preseason Top Ten Linebackers1 2
For USC's players, as we noted last week, there are all sorts of questions for this summer and fall.
But as we also enumerated, there are at least 60 Trojans -- not counting this week's incoming freshmen -- who could offer answers. Talent will never be USC's problem, certainly not in the Pac-12. Not ever.
Of course, quarterback has to get sorted out. But other than O-line, where four starters return, there aren't really any questions without answers. Best home all in one laser printer for mac 2018 collections.
Other than this: In Season 3, does Clay Helton put it all together without having Sam Darnold to make Trojan magic. Quicken for mac 2018 starter. Clay has a turnaround Rose-Bowl-winning season and then a first-ever Pac-12-winning one on his resume. He's beaten Stanford twice in one year. And lost just a single Pac-12 game last fall.
But that loss, to Washington State on the road in a Friday night ambush courtesy of the Pac-12 schedule-makers to which USC failed to object, was the first of three major embarrassments in 2017. The other two came at the hands of the only legitimate big-time opponents on the USC schedule -- Notre Dame and Ohio State -- and those two flat-out physically abused a non-competitive Trojans team.
No question that Trojans team didn't have the answer those three games, despite having the talent, but also struggled big-time against the likes of Texas, Utah, UCLA and less so against Western Michigan, Cal, Colorado and Arizona.
Which is where the coaching comes in. Can it match USC's talent, with recruiting classes considered No. 3 in the nation the last five years behind only Alabama and Ohio State? One ranking, by CBSports.com, has Clay No. 31 among the 65 Power Five head coaches.
And right in the middle of the Pac-12, where five new coaches are in place for the fall with another, Cal's Justin Wilcox in Year 2. That's half the league's coaches having turned over in just over a year. There are six ranked below Clay with Arizona State's Herm Edwards at No. 64, Oregon State's Jonathan Smith at No. 63, Oregon's Mario Cristobal at No. 54 -- all newbies -- with Wilcox at No. 53, Colorado's Mike MacIntyre at No. 42 and another newcomer, Arizona's Kevin Sumlin, at No. 36 to fill out the bottom half of the Pac.
At No. 31, Clay Helton, despite the Rose Bowl and Pac-12 title and a 21-6 mark and two major bowl games (Cotton Bowl last year), is at the bottom of the Pac-12's top half behind five league coaches not to mention two others USC will face in 2018 -- Texas' Tom Herman at No. 28 and Notre Dame's Brian Kelly at No. 27 -- with Utah's Kyle Whittingham (No. 25), Washington State's Mike Leach (No. 24), UCLA's Chip Kelly (No. 9), Stanford's David Shaw (No. 7) and Washington's Chris Petersen (No. 5).
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Against that group, Clay was 4-2 last fall with the double over Stanford and the double-escape against Texas and Utah. But when it comes to coaching in 2018, should USC make it to the title game against UW and Petersen, against whom Clay is 1-0, opponents will have the sideline edge against USC in seven games, says CBS.
And it's hard to argue when you watched the difficulty the Trojans had in holding on to the football, blocking the run when they had to, protecting Darnold, avoiding penalties, giving up big plays, catching and returning punts, playing physical with a tough confidence, all that sort of stuff that really good coaches get their guys to do that USC couldn't seem to manage consistently.
That needs to change. And it could. But there are no guarantees. Here's our look at what the chances are that it will. The numbers and the talent certainly would allow for practices more challenging, more physical, more competitive than we've seen in recent seasons.
And as much as we agree with John McKay's 'it's not the plays but the players' line and 'It's not about the Xs and O's but the Jimmy's and Joe's,' it's also about the coaches.
*** NAME THE QUARTERBACK: In our only take on personnel, it does look like the coaching staff is more prepared to go with the new guy, incoming freshman JT Daniels, if he's the guy coming out of August than it was when Darnold was a redshirt freshman behind Max Browne. That there's no clear front-runner helps after Matt Fink's and Jack Sears' spring work and the lessons of holding off too long on naming Darnold after three games are still fresh in everybody's minds.
*** DID YOU SAY 'RUN FIRST'?: With three talented 215-pound tailbacks, it's music to anyone's ears who wants to see USC play with more physicality, more power, and obviously less reliance on an untested quarterback, to hear the talk of a 'run-first' offensive philosophy. And with a line coach, Tim Drevno, replacing the talented Deland McCullough as running backs coach, you have to hope that means a more integrated run-blocking approach replacing last season's often mis-matched line of scrimmage blocking. It appeared headed in the right direction in the spring with the focused play-calling of offensive coordinator Tee Martin. And the work of Drevno with O-line coach Neil Callaway. This has to involve everybody and for a team returning four starters on the O-line, USC should not look out-manned or be out-gunned up front this season if they get this right.
*** 4 TIGHT ENDS . . . AND A COACH: Adding Keary Colbert as USC's dedicated tight end coach can't help but help a deep position with four players -- five if you count walk-on Austin Applebee -- who can play. For this offense to get where it has to be, the tight ends must become a bigger factor this fall. That improvement has a better shot now.
*** BACK TO SPECIAL TEAMS FOR BAXTER: 2017 was not a good year for special teams coach John Baxter, whose guys couldn't run punts back, or even catch them. And kickoff returns weren't all that special either. Now Baxter, with no tight end responsibilities, can focus on figuring out how to use all the athletes he has to get both the return, cover and block teams going the way he has in past years. This has to be a positive especially with some of the return candidates having never done it in college and needing the kind of hands-on coaching Adoree' Jackson didn't. And with the number of athletes available, USC's cover teams could be special.
*** RUNNING IT SHOULD MAKE IT EASIER FOR WIDE RECEIVERS: If Tee can get the 'run-first' offense right, it should help his wide receivers' blocking and even more so, their ability to get open, especially deep, on play-action if defenses absolutely must respect the run. So maybe the best thing Tee can do is get the run game going. He does have plenty of guys who should be able to catch it including two legit No. 1's -- Tyler Vaughns and Michael Pittman.
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*** ADDITION BY SUBTRACTION IN SECONDARY: No Jack Jones. No problem. Secondary coach Ronnie Bradford had a much more receptive group this spring without Jack and with Jonathan Lockett stepping in. There's a lot of talent back here and having Iman Marshall working on his technique the way he's been and All-American safety candidate Marvell Tell joined by a handful of young talent makes this a group where coaching really matters and having coordinator Clancy Pendergast pitching in with the safeties can't hurt, especially when it comes to the breakdowns that allowed 13 plays of 40 yards or more.
*** LOTS OF LINEBACKERS: Clancy will also pitch in with the inside linebackers with Johnny Nansen taking the outside guys and again, as with the secondary, there's a lot of talent there with senior All-American Cameron Smith performing as a coach himself, it would seem. His Trojans led the nation in sacks, were No. 4 in the red zone and had 24 takeaways. This team with these numbers should be able to replicate the pluses of 2017 without the minuses. Getting Porter Gustin healthy and getting an explosive talent in newcomer Kana'i Mauga surely works with Clancy's 'play-on-the-other-side-of-the-line-of-scrimmage' philosophy.
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*** D-LINE FIT FOR BKU: They're coming along together, a young D-line coach in Kenechi Udeze and a group with some serious young talent who can grow up together. Seems like a match made for some serious disruption if healthy. They have the size, the depth, the numbers and the talent.
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*** LOOPING BACK TO QB: Big challenge here for first-year quarterbacks coach Bryan Ellis who had some decent experience at Western Kentucky and seems to be building up a strong bond with his pupils but we'll know how that's going when USC hits the second and third week at Stanford and Texas with a young quarterback.
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