Camp Q’s: Is there a competition at Linebacker at NC State?

NC State has the luxury of returning two 3-year starters at linebacker in Jerod Fernandez (MLB) and Airius Moore (WLB). Fernandez was second on the team in tackles behind Josh Jones last season with 88, and Moore is the second highest graded returning linebacker in the ACC according to ProFootballFocus.

You would think that NC State head coach Dave Doeren would be singing the praises of his Senior linebacker duo, but that hasn’t been the case. It’s not that he has said anything negative about either of them, but he just hasn’t been able to stop talking about their ‘backups’ Riley Nicholson and Germaine Pratt.

Doeren has made it clear in Fall Camp that the competition at linebacker between these four is legit. He has said that there has never been competition like this at linebacker since he’s been in Raleigh. Doeren has stated that they view all four of these linebackers as their ‘4 starting linebackers.’

Pratt (6’3″/237) has put on 39 pounds of muscle since last summer, and has officially moved from Safety to Linebacker. At the end of Spring practice, Doeren said that Pratt probably had the best Spring of anyone on the team. I listened to Ryan Tice’s excellent podcast with Dantonio Burnette, NC State Football’s Director of Strength and Conditioning, Thunder Dan said that he expects Pratt to make a huge impact this year. He said he has one of the best Football IQ’s on the team, and he is instinctual in ways that remind of him of Wolfpack greats Nate Irving and Stephen Tulloch. Nicholson has been a player has ‘flashed’ since his freshman season, in which he started three games. Like Pratt, he is explosive, bursts through the line, and doesn’t think…he just reacts. Both Nicholson and Pratt wold be starters at linebacker on a majority of the teams in the ACC.

I’m pretty confident that Moore and Fernandez will enter the season as the starters, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Pratt and Nicholson make a move at some point during the season. At minimum, I doubt that Moore and Fernandez see the same snap counts they saw as Juniors, which should keep all four of these fellas fresh and explosive on every down.