Prepping for the NFL: College football’s best linebacker developers

Bryan Fischer

College Football Writer

Editor’s note: This is part of an ongoing series on how college coaches fare at developing players for the NFL. Check out previous stories on quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers/tight ends, offensive linemen and defensive linemen. For a deeper dive by conference, check out SEC offense, SEC defense, ACC offense, ACC defense, Big 12 defense, Big 12 offense, Pac-12 offense, Pac-12 defense, Big Ten offense, Big Ten defense.

Following the 2023 NFL Draft, FOX Sports pulled decades worth of recruiting data and looked at how productive (or not) each active Power 5 coach was at both recruiting and developing players when it came to the ultimate eye in the sky of the NFL.

Over a dozen parts this summer, we’ve looked at every Power 5 league to see who the best coaches within each conference are at developing players across every position group. But when looking at the picture nationally, just how do coaches stack up against each other when it comes to finding all of those good players and, well, coaching them up?

To sort it all out, FOX Sports utilized a points system that rewarded development and applied it to every active Power 5 coach’s draft class. Every drafted defensive lineman received a certain number based on what round he was drafted and what kind of recruit he was coming out of high school. An unrated defensive lineman coming out of high school going in the first round would be at the very highest end of the scale while a former five-star d-lineman sneaking into the seventh round of the draft would be at the lowest end.

To get a better picture of just how effective coaches were, this cumulative score was then divided by the number of seasons coached at the Division I level to get an overall rating.

As a result, here’s a look at how every active Power 5 coach in the country does when it comes to producing defensive linemen for the next level:

The Best: Kirby Smart (Georgia)

To put into context Smart’s productivity at producing linebackers, he’s further ahead of second place in this metric (Nick Saban) than the Alabama head coach is from a coach who has produced zero NFL LBs over a multi-year tenure.

Smart’s 11 drafted linebackers across seven seasons are third-most among active Power 5 coaches and behind only two other coaches (Saban and Mack Brown) who have been in the big chair for at least two decades longer. The total is also two more than the rest of the SEC East coaches combined.

64% of the players drafted at linebacker out of Georgia have also gone in the top 100 picks, and three of that group have been first-rounders. Naturally five-stars like Roquan Smith or Nolan Smith this past year have done well in living up to their prep rankings, but Smart has also been able to send three-stars like Monty Rice and two-star Tae Crowder to the next level as well.

Also excellent: Nick Saban (Alabama), Dan Lanning (Oregon), Eli Drinkwitz (Missouri), Ryan Day (Ohio State), Mark Stoops (Kentucky)

Smart’s old boss is naturally pretty good himself given the reputation he has for sending players to the NFL. All told, Saban is the only coach to have 20 linebackers drafted over the course of his time as a head coach, 65% of which have been taken in the top 100. His six first-rounders are double anybody else and half of the five-star linebackers he’s recruited over the years have gone on to become top-100 picks.

Young coaches naturally fare well in this exercise if they’ve hit on guys, too, and that’s the case with Lanning, whose first draft class saw two linebackers taken. One of those was former five-star Noah Sewell in the fifth-round and former four-star DJ Johnson in the third. Drinkwitz has been similarly productive in his four seasons, sending a pair to the league that has included former three-star Nick Bolton into a second–rounder and eventual Super Bowl champ.

Day is in a different ballpark in terms of recruiting, but has gotten off to an excellent start with two top-100 players at linebacker in just four full (and five total) seasons in charge. 2020 third-rounder Malik Harrison was a three-star out of high school, while second-rounder Pete Werner aligned well with the four-stars he was labeled.

The Ohio State coach has only been coaching half as long as Stoops, who has a track record that is even more extraordinary considering he’s helped produce three first-round linebackers in a full decade at Kentucky. Throw in averaging one player taken at the position essentially every other season at a noted basketball school, all of whom were ranked no higher than three-stars, only adds to what the longtime coach has accomplished in building things up down in Lexington.

Others of note: Lincoln Riley (USC), Dabo Swinney (Clemson), Mack Brown (UNC), Kyle Whittingham (Utah), Matt Rhule (Nebraska)

Linebacker isn’t typically the position (or side of the ball) that comes to mind initially when it comes to Riley, but the Trojans‘ coach has churned out three in six seasons — including one in each of the first three rounds. While first-rounder Kenneth Murray gets a lot of attention, Riley’s first full recruiting class at Oklahoma also produced three- and four-star players who went in the first 70 picks.

The guy who has USC’s number of late is even better at the development aspect, however. Whittingham, across nearly two decades with the Utes, has seen eight linebackers make it to the league via the draft, and not one has been ranked above three-stars out of high school. First-rounder Devin Lloyd was a two-star originally, while there were a pair of players who also went either the junior college or transfer route before being drafted.

Swinney naturally has recruited at a higher level than Whittingham but still has been able to develop some underrated gems at the position. This includes three-star-turned-first-rounder Isaiah Simmons and top-100 pick Tanner Muse. On the other end of the spectrum, Stephone Anthony played up to his five-star rating by going in the first round while the similarly rated Trenton Simpson just went in the top 100 this past spring.

Still, Swinney doesn’t hold a candle to his ACC rival Brown when it comes to the total number of linebackers produced. Dating back to his first selection back in 1986 — more than 15 years before internet recruiting services went mainstream — the North Carolina coach has sent an impressive 17 linebackers to the league. Not only is that second most among all Power 5 coaches but it’s included a trio of first-rounders and three more who have gone inside the top 100.

The list of Brown’s linebackers has run the gamut too, from four-star quarterback to third-rounder Chazz Surratt with the Tar Heels, to four-star Brian Orakpo and five-star Sergio Kindle while he was in charge at Texas.

Rhule is nowhere close to those kinds of overall numbers but was incredible at finding guys when he was at Temple, notably taking Haason Reddick from unrated walk-on to the first round.

Surprisingly disappointing: Matt Campbell (Iowa State), Mike Locksley (Maryland), Josh Heupel (Tennessee), Mike Norvell (Florida State), Greg Schiano (Rutgers), Dino Babers (Syracuse), Scott Satterfield (Cincinnati)

Campbell, Locksley and Norvell are the only three Power 5 coaches without a linebacker taken in the draft despite coaching at least eight seasons. The same is true of Heupel across six, but that should change moving forward given how he’s doing at Tennessee.

While Satterfield, Babers and Schiano are not the only active coaches with at least a decade in charge to only have one linebacker taken, others like Hugh Freeze at least had their lone pick at the position go inside the first 100 picks.

Bryan Fischer is a college football writer for FOX Sports. He has been covering college athletics for nearly two decades at outlets such as NBC Sports, CBS Sports, Yahoo! Sports and NFL.com among others. Follow him on Twitter at @BryanDFischer.