Post-spring position recap: Who fills out the two-deep at ILB once everybody is healthy? | Football

Spring ball is in the rearview mirror and Nebraska football now moves into the next phase of the offseason.

There is plenty of movement on the horizon in the transfer portal around the country, so every team is constantly in at least some state of flux. However, it’s a good time to look at the Husker roster and recap spring developments and forecast the coming weeks and months.

We continue today with the defense: 

What we learned this spring: Nebraska will have some new names in the mix for the two-deep, even if Barrett Ruud hopes to continue to rely heavily on starters Luke Reimer and Nick Henrich. 

Before spring ball started, Will Honas transferred to Kansas State. Then practice got going and Chris Kolarevic was playing exclusively nickel in hopes of helping to replace JoJo Domann there. Then factor in that Reimer and Garrett Snodgrass both missed the spring, and a bunch of young and inexperienced players got a lot of snaps. 

That list ranges from senior Eteva Mauga-Clements to freshman early enrollee Ernest Hausmann to walk-on Grant Tagge, redshirt freshmen Randolph Kpai and Mikai Gbayor and others. 

In the Red-White Spring Game, Hausmann and Kpai worked extensively together as a pair. It’s possible those two, Mauga-Clements and Tagge are all core special teams players even if not all of them will end up in the two-deep.

Questions remaining: Can Ruud really find a third that he trusts to produce at a similar level to Henrich and Reimer? Snodgrass didn’t get a chance to earn that role this spring, but he’ll have a crack at it as long as he’s healthy for preseason camp. Mauga-Clements has the athleticism, flashes pop and now has been in the system for a couple of years.

Maybe a young guy really makes a run. But the bottom line is that the top pair each played 700-plus snaps in 2021 and Kolarevic didn’t even get to 150, an imbalance Ruud admitted this spring needs to be curbed in order to keep his top guys healthy. 

Quotable: Ruud on Reimer and Snodgrass being out this spring: “You never like injuries, but the only positive to an injury (in the spring) is that the young guys are probably getting a little bit more reps, which is good, because they need the reps right now. Some of them spent last year on scout team and didn’t get the actual defensive reps that you normally would get, so it’s nice to get those guys caught up in the spring.” 

Best-case scenario: Snodgrass becomes a trusty No. 3 or the Huskers add a player with some experience from the portal. In the meantime, the young group of players at the position helps turn NU’s special teams units into a strength and prepares for bigger roles in the future.