Apparently Luketa has been hurt and limited in participation - probably why he packed on pounds. Not a good thing either, as I can't see added weight boosting his play from last year.
Really interested to see what happens at LB because both Ellis/Luketa were pretty terrible. I'm hoping Smith/Jacobs lock down two spots and one of Katshir, Elsdon, King surprise this spring/fall and can be key contributors.
Any of the football experts on the board have insights/opinions on Smith playing in the middle? Does that make sense, or is he more suited on the outside? Ellis/Luketa struggle in traffic, but they also lack speed/quickness to keep up/wrap up in the open field...I'm not sure I can watch another season of those two.
Yep, if Luketa and Brooks (i.e. Ellis Brooks) end up as 2 of the 3 starting LB's for 2021 it seems that the potential for improvement will be limited. One of the reasons I was hoping Luketa would balloon up to a DE.
Brooks seems like a somewhat better tackler than Luketa, but on way too many plays stepped up into a hole that was not really there and took himself out of the play that was his responsibility to make. But given that bothe are upper classmen it also seems like the best we can hope for to start the season would be for Smith and Jacobs winning starting jobs and Luketa and Brooks being "OR'd" at the MLB spot.
Regarding Smith, I believe he played the outside LB spot that Brown played before him, the open field LB. So if Smith moved to Parson's old spot, where Luketa started in 2020, he will be moving more to the middle, and that would allow the super athletic Jacobs to play more in space.
Brooks was a poster child (in multiple pictures) in the S&C workout pictures recently released by PSU so I'm hoping that his experience and potentially increased strength and quickness will lead to a noticeable improvement in his play at MLB next Fall.
Other than that we have to hope that the next great PSU LB that we haven't seen will be on campus (Elsdon, King,...) or that Katshir makes a big leap in performance, to add a new name moving up the depth chart to improve the overall performance of the LB's in 2021.....