re: Is Shane Lee our next great LBer??

How often do you come back home? I owe you a few drinks because I was a prick. (No homo).

Well buddy, I owe ya. Sometimes your critiques can be harsh, but since I've gotten to understand you, I can respect what you say.

Drinks on me

You don’t even need the opinion. He all but admitted he faked it when he got engaged after the game as he was walking just fine and someone called him out.

What Prevatt said is spot on.

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He all but admitted he faked it when he got engaged after the game as he was walking just fine and someone called him out.

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She should have said no

Continuing the ILB discussion, I had previously said this:

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I watched Lee and all the ILBs closely. Lee will have a bright future at Mike. But he'll never be able to cover anybody except the RB out of the backfield, and therefore will never play Will. McMillon won the Most Improved Player award, and I expect him to start and do well. It wouldn't surprise me, tho, if Moses switched back to Will while calling the defense and McMillon played Mike. Also, if you watch closely, Lee played Mike the entire game. I never saw him play Will at all. If anyone beats out McMillon, it'd be Benton, although Benton looks lost in coverage and McMillon honestly looked pretty solid in coverage - never lost, always knew who his man was, etc. Until further notice, our starting ILBs are Moses and McMillon, and the 2s aren't close. Just my 2 cents, and I know ILB.

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and this...

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I'm about halfway through my first rewatch, and I'm focusing on ILBs, and Moses looks good. He's filling run gaps without hesitation and flowing to the ball nicely. He drops his hips and gets into coverage quickly. However, as the Mike, his coverage responsibility is simple - cover the RB 95% of the time. But Moses looked really, really good. Made a lot of tackles, and looked confident and in control. Not that you asked, but I have also come away really impressed with McMillon. He's a big, physical guy and plays like it. He's not the most fluid guy in coverage, but his frame makes him rangy and he looked in position most of the day. I feel much better about our ILBs after Aday. Both Moses and McMillan flowed to the ball well in the run game, but Moses made more tackles as McMillon's coverage responsibilities at Will necessitate him lining up frequently on the edge of the box or even outside it. Mike is almost always somewhere between the B gaps pre-snap. Will could be anywhere, even lined up on a slot WR or Split End. Regarding Lee, he'll be great Mike in the future, but needs to absorb the playbook and maybe take some yoga to get flexible. He's a dog, though. Regarding Benton, he looks to be a really nice athlete who moves well and flies around, but he's frequently not in position or confused. But when the light comes on for him, look out. He likes contact and plays active. But to my eye, the 2s are way behind the 1s, and the 3s similarly so. Kaho needs to get bigger and made some huge busts in coverage. That Kendrick James TD was his fault, for example. All in all, I feel much better than before Aday.

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But I need to amend a couple of things:

I think the 2nd team Mike LB is Jalen Moody. Why? He didn't play his first snap until 5 minutes to go in the 3rd quarter, but he came in to play Mike in the context of him playing with the rest of the 1s. Literally, on his 2nd or 3rd play when he returns the pick 6, he was surrounded by the rest of the 1st team defense on that play.

I really have a hard time believing that we'd go to the trouble of single subbing one particular guy to play with the 1s, if he's the 3rd team Mike. I think the teams were set up to bring the young ones along as much as possible on that Crimson defense, but not all of them are necessarily 2nd teamers - some of them are really 3rd teamers - but we need to use Spring to bring them along, because come Fall camp, the 1s and 2s will get all the development.

I currently think the ILB pecking order goes:

MIKE:
1 - Moses
2 - Moody
3 - Lee

WILL:
1 - McMillon
2 - Benton
3 - Kaho

Granted, I'm not saying that if Moses gets injured, that definitely Moody's coming in the game. McMillon could slide to Mike and Benton comes in, for all I know. Similarly, I'm not saying that if McMillon gets injured, that Benton is coming in. Perhaps Moses would slide back to Will and Moody comes in to play Mike. It all depends on who we're playing and how we can get the best 11 on the field.

But I think Moody is ahead of Lee on the depth chart. Boz, or anyone else, do you have any information to contradict any of this?

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MIKE: 1 - Moses 2 - Moody 3 - Lee
WILL: 1 - McMillon 2 - Benton 3 - Kaho

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That makes sense. Moody has been trained there since he got on campus and he was getting some buzz last season. Lee needs time to learn calls and hopefully we can avoid the SDH 2014 playoff situation by having Moody as a somewhat experienced backup.