No doubt the UNM football team’s linebacking corps is deep, but the jury is still out on whether they’re all game-ready.
They’ve had to adapt to a switch from a 3-3-5 defensive scheme to defensive coordinator Doug Mallory’s 4-3 defense, linebackers coach Toby Neinas said.
And how many players the Lobos will rotate at linebacker remains to be seen, Neinas said.
“If (I) have depth and quality players, then I always try to play everybody and limit the snaps to keep everybody as fresh as I can,” he said. “But you have to be able to play at a very high level before I put you in.”
The Lobos had to account for the losses of sacks-leading Herbert Folder and middle linebacker Zach Arnett, who was second on the team in tackles.
The Lobos recruited five linebackers in the offseason, but all of them can’t be expected to hit the ground running.
But Clint McPeek and Carmen Messina seem like virtual locks to be in the Lobos’ starting linebacker rotation, considering their production last year and at the spring and fall camps.
McPeek is fresh off a statistical dream of a season in 2008. He led the team in tackles with 103, 50 of which were unassisted. In spite of the fact that he was sidelined during the spring while recovering from knee surgery, the coaching staff still expects that McPeek will be one of the “most athletic” linebackers in the league.
As an outside linebacker this year, McPeek said his stats will likely dip, since, in the Lobo position last year, he was “running as fast as (I could) with reckless abandonment,” as opposed to this year, when he will be reading and analyzing offensive plays before reacting.
Either way, it doesn’t matter to him, he said.
“As long as I do everything I can to help the team win, that makes me happy,” McPeek said. “It doesn’t matter to me if I have a lot of tackles or none as long as I help the team win.”
But filling Arnett’s shoes — figuratively, since he was undersized for a linebacker — could be difficult. Luckily, UNM has a viable candidate in Carmen Messina.
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Messina, a 6-foot-2-inch, 222-pound sophomore, had the most tackles – nine – back in the Lobos’ spring cherry-silver scrimmage. And during the 2008 season, Messina was considered “the most productive linebacker off the bench in his debut season,” turning in “an excellent spring as the Lobos’ starting middle linebacker,” according to the Lobo football media guide.
This year, he’s enthused about playing on a full-time basis.
“It feels great. I have been working my whole life getting to this point to finally be able to be a starter out there,” Messina said.
Presumably, the only question that remains is who will anchor the Lobos’ other outside backer position. Though head coach Mike Locksley is keeping his lips tight regarding starting positions, senior Tray Hardaway appears to be the favorite to round out the linebacker corps. Hardaway has taken the most snaps with the linebackers throughout the fall.
While UNM has 12 linebackers heading into the ’09 season, Neinas expects to have about six game-ready players who could possibly see action come Sept. 5, when the Lobos travel to Texas A&M.
“If they allow me to play six and seven linebackers, I will,” he said. “If we are only able to play three guys or four guys, that’s all we will play.”
