Brian up next year on the Irish breakdown podcast brought to buy our friends over at Fandu. We're switching gears and we're talking the defensive side of the ball. Just got done breaking down. Ola Bobola's commitment to Notre Dame in the 2027 class. Now it's time to continue the state of the program series. And up next is the linebacker room. This is a really fun discussion because this is the deepest linebacker room in college

football, Brian. I don't know if there's any other way around it. I don't think there's any other

program in the country at the FBS level. There might be some at the FCS or maybe there's one in the

G5 lurking around somewhere that returns both starters and all three key rotational pieces to

their lineback room for this fall. Very, very excited to see what they do this year. But,

you know, first and foremost, diving into it because I know it was a pretty light spring from this

group. Overall, top to bottom, this is the deepest linebacker room in the country.

I don't know that that's arguable, honestly. I think there's a

case you could make, and again, I don't know how compelling I would find the case, but there's a

case to make for certain teams, Texas, you know, getting Rachine Bryos could make the case that,

hey, our starting linebacker room is better than your starting linebacker room. Okay, fine. But the guy that people project to be a first-round draft pick for a name of a linebacker, it doesn't even start for Notre Dame. And hasn't been a starter. The only time we've seen Kingston start is when they start in a 4-3 defense. And he's the third linebacker. You know, we saw this spring trebv. I mean, you talk about being just actually loaded. We go into this spring and there's no Drake Bowen, who was a team captain last year. There's no Kingston, Villama Asa. And Madframel wasn't out there to begin the spring. But by the end of the spring, you start looking at it and you're saying, dude, if the linebacking core was just what they ended the spring with,

like guys that played in the blue goal game,

Madframo, Jaden Osbury, Jalen Sneed, Teddy Rezak, Coa, and the freshman, this is still a top

10 to 12 linebacker room in Conch football. Like Like this is a very talented linebacker room.

And it's not just our opinion.

You know, you could also look at recruiting rankings if you're someone who believes that.

They were all three top hundred players coming out of high school.

So this is a very deep, very athletic and talented linebacker room.

Then you throw in Drake Bowen, who Sporting News has the number 27

projected player in next year's NFL draft, and then Kingston, Vidal-A-A-Aa, who they also

have in the top 50, who other people have as a top first-round caliber player, and you're like,

okay, this room is absolutely loaded. Now, a lot of these guys are going to be done after the next year's,

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