Last year, we saw what a talented freshman linebacker in over his head looked like. His name was Nyles Morgan, and the blue-chip recruit personified the second-half defensive collapse that flushed the Irish season down the drain.
Of course, that’s the bad part. The good? Morgan also flashed the skills that made him a tackling machine. So while Irish fans grumbled about missed assignments and struggles grasping the system, the 30,000-foot-view named Morgan a Freshman All-American, and he ended up one of the team’s leading tacklers, even though he played just a fraction of the season.