Spring Look Back: Inside Linebacker

We continue our spring positional recaps today by giving our final take on Nebraska’s inside linebackers.

Related: QB | RB | WR | TE | OL | DL | OLB

Heading out of the spring, Northern Iowa transfer Chris Kolarevic and sophomore Luke Reimer appear to have a lock on the starting two inside linebacker jobs. Both players appear to be NFL-level players as NU heads into the 2021 season.

Behind them, redshirt freshmen Nick Henrich and Garrett Snodgrass have a lock on the third group, while Eva Mauga-Clements and Jackson Hannah took third-team reps, but walk-ons like Zach Schlager and Chris Cassidy also got solid reps as well.

There were two early enrollees that go plenty of snaps this spring too in Seth Malcom and Randolph Kpai.

Position coach Barrett Ruud has to really like where this room is at with the 10 players I just mentioned. They were nowhere near that level in 2018 and 2019, which tells you how far things have come.

One of the biggest blows this spring was losing sixth-year senior Will Honas to a knee injury during the final week of practice.

Evidently, the injury happened in a non-contact drill, as it’s the third major knee injury Honas has suffered over his football career.

There is no timeline on Honas’s return at this point, but the best-case scenario is probably late in the season.

Think about all the star power Nebraska has tried to recruit at linebacker the last few years.

Then think about this: There two starters at inside linebacker in Reimer and Kolarevic were not offered FBS scholarships in high school.

Kolarevic was a very under-the-radar addition this fall. In fact, his commit got very little fanfare, but the bottom line is this staff’s connections at Northern Iowa gave them an inside track.

Today, Kolarevic appears to be one of the better transfer portal additions this staff has added, and I’m not sure anyone would’ve said that this fall when it happened.

Kolarevic is a junior, Reimer a sophomore and Henrich and Snodgrass are redshirt freshmen.

Even without Honas, you have to really like the overall direction of the inside linebackers at NU.

The other thing is they have the ability to withstand an injury and not suffer a big drop-off. We saw that last year when Henrich had to step up at Rutgers, and we are seeing it again now with how they’ve looked this spring without Honas.

The biggest key for Ruud is developing young guys like Kpai, Malcom and incoming freshman Mikai Gbayor.