To begin this segment I will shamelessly rip-off my segment on this position group from my big picture preview:
ILB
ILB1: Kamar Mothundi
ILB2: Tristan Jernigan
ILB
ILB1: AJ Tuitele
ILB2: Aaron Hampton
I hate uncertainty, which is the bane of my existence. Under Justin Wilcox and co. we knew that a certain standard would be maintained in the position. The lineage that traced itself to Evan Weaver continued with hard-nosed play by the players. However, with the departure of Cade Uluave to BYU and Luke Ferrelli to Clemson (wait, news tells me he is in 0-2 against Cal Ole Miss??).
Cal brings in a lot of question marks in the position groups with Mothundi and Tuilele both very “capital A” Athletic prospects who seek to prove that their play matches their potential. It would be unfair to expect them to play like Weaver/Kunaszyk era players but we need some level of competency to secure the A and B gaps.
Jernigan and Hampton are also interesting players, the former comes from Texas A&M with a strong high school pedigree but not a lot of college snaps, the latter is an unheralded prospect out of Alaska who has been able to get snaps for Cal over the last 2 years.
Here is the spot where I go deeper into the position group. There are three considerations when it comes to any position:
Players,
Coaches,
Scheme.
Players
We touched on players above and my projected sense for the 2 deep. Other players who may see some playing time are true freshmen JD McKinley and Jaxon Pyatt. The former already getting time with the media as he acclimated with college football during spring camp.
The common trait amongst all of the ILBs is the elevated level of athleticism in the position group with each of the players coming in with a lot of questions from an experience perspective and a lot of answers in the athletic outcomes a bit like having the inverse of Evan Weaver in this department.
Coaches
I haven’t gotten to the section on defensive coaching but for this exercise there are two names we need to talk about:
ILB Bob Gregory
Hutchings was a highly coveted prep recruit who played ILB for U$C and then steadily climbed the coaching ranks oscillating between the linebacker and safety spots ending at the Minnesota Vikings as a safeties coach under Brian Flores before coming to Cal as DC. Bob Gregory on the other hand has been coaching football for 8 years longer than DC Hutchings has been alive and thus brings enough experience in coaching the position group to supplement any questions DC Hutchings’ inexperience may pose.
I do believe that their combined resumes will indicate they have the prerequisite acumen to evaluate and coach the position group well. I do not believe that the coaching will fail the position group.
Scheme
Get ready to learn A gap blitz lads. This is from the Kirby Smart/Nick Saban system playbook and it shows the idea that both ILBs are pass rushing threats depending on what the slant of the center when he takes the snap. This requires good mental processing because either both blitz vacating the middle for an easy completion to a drag route or screen, or both drop into the same space effectively making the defense play with 10 men for the crucial first second of a play.
If there is anything the Flores defense has going for it is the sheer aggression in putting the inside linebackers into blitzing positions while the rest of the defense plays man pre-snap.
I highly recommend the linked article where Ted Nguyen and Alec Lewis breakdown the Vikings defense in 2025 which is when Hutchings was on staff. Something that stuck out to me in the article is :
“I think we’ve built a reputation of disguise,” Flores explained. “So, what they see, they don’t think that’s what it is. And so sometimes, what they see is what it is. Other times, the disguise is that we want to show them split-safety, but it’s really post-safety. And we want to show them post-safety, but it’s really split-safety. But, I think that’s one of the things from the two years of data standpoint. People are looking for something that may or may not be there, and they don’t believe the first thing they see. So, we can kinda use that to our advantage also.”
As well as the MAZE concept where the defense acts as if in man coverage only to execute zone defense concepts. This negates the information the QB receives when putting a WR in motion but it imposes an incredible amount of discipline on the defensive players to understand and execute the change in their assignments when forced into different positions due to the usage of motion. This affects the ILB room because as the coverage bumps over the hook zone responsibility can become a curl/flat one as the entire defensive coverage shell bumps over with the corner following a motion by the WR.
Having in mind the possibility of having to bump across the zones at ever snap can be taxing when it’s play 73 deep into the 4th quarter and you need to protect a 3 point lead in your 4th start facing Clemson under the lights in Berkeley.