2015 3* LB Elijah Sullivan (Kansas State signee)

[metafour 4,969]

Justin Hokanson ‏@JHokanson

New #Auburn LB commit Elijah Sullivan @NIKE_BOUND21 measured in at 6'0 3/4, 204 pounds last Saturday. @Rivals @RivalsCamp

Lol......

we just took a commitment from a 6-0/6-1 ~205 pound kid

[mcgufcm 4,096]

The kid will be 210 by the time he hits Auburn. 220-ish by the end of his freshman year. We're looking for bigger guys that can cover.

[metafour 4,969]

Yea yo. He'll probably be 250 by the time he graduates.

[douggwilliams 61]

He could fall in love with mama Gs and become morbidly obese, no one knows.

[mikeymac 8]

realistically though, by the time this kid is ready to start, he is likely going to be around 220. I believe our weight lifting program can help him add a healthy 15 pounds where he keeps his athleticism. He may not be the 230 some are saying (he could develop into that) but at 220lbs, that would be very good size for a safety and nice size for a star.

[mcgufcm 4,096]

He'll be Justin Garrett. He came to Auburn 6'1" around 190 lbs. He's currently the same height and 220. Or about 15 pounds heavier than Therezie. meta can get upset about it all he wants. The point remains: we want guys in the 220-230 range at Star, not 200 pound Safeties that like to hit.

By the time he hits the rotation, this guy will look more like the former than the latter.

[RBUFan 0]

I like this guy at H-back. Saw some pretty nasty blocks on his highlights and seems to have good hands and speed. Looks difficult to take down too. Not saying he wouldn't be a beast playing star but has he said whether he would rather play O or D?

[metafour 4,969]

SMH...there is absolutely no weight requirement to play the Star position. Find me one quote by Johnson or anyone on the staff in which they state they "need" 220-230 pounds. There is none. They will take 210-215 at the position all day if the kid can run and tackle and has the smarts to play the position...which is exactly what you saw with two of his three Spur safeties at South Carolina. It is exactly what you saw at South Carolina THIS YEAR when an undersized player won the starting job.

Speed and reactive quickness is more vital than size at the position. How do you know that this kid even has the frame to hold 220+ pounds and still possess the movement and change of direction skills needed to execute the complexities of the position? They will sacrifice weight for movement all day at Star if needed. You are right that Kam Chancellor is pretty much the prototype for the position...but Kam Chancellor's dont grow on trees.

[JDUBB4AU 5,121]

I wish we had a guy who weighed 400 lbs who ran a 3.1 fourth. Or a guy who could make solo tackles ..

[mcgufcm 4,096]

Hell, meta, I'm just glad I finally got you to agree that a 230 lb. player is actually the ideal for the position. That's progress.

[Mikey 16,595]

One LB commitment acquired, three to go. Lookin' good!

[metafour 4,969]

One LB commitment acquired, three to go. Lookin' good!

Lookin' good for you being completely wrong once again.

4-2-5.

Notice that the "Star" is grouped in with the DBs. It is considered a Safety.

"I'm more about players than plays. I have a core principle of how you start with your defense, because I think it has to be adaptable to what you have to stop today. We will originate out of a four-man front, with two inside linebackers and five defensive backs. It's a three safety defense, and from there, we will build packages that we add to that based upon personnel"

[Mikey 16,595]

One LB commitment acquired, three to go. Lookin' good!

Lookin' good for you being completely wrong once again.

Regardless of your impression of yourself, you do not get to say who is right and who is wrong. Pasting random quotes from coaches taken out of context doesn't prove your point. We just got a commitment from our first LINEBACKER of the 2015 class. If you can read, read the thread's title. It clearly says "LB committs to AU. Read it and weep. Hopefully, he'll be the first of the four or five LINEBACKERS we need to sign next February.

[gravejd 3,270]

I'm not sure which one of you guys is right but i'll be interested to see who is. Last year the star position on our defense was definitely more of a safety. Would it have been the same had Garret not gotten hurt? I don't really know the answer to that question. I've never seen Garret play outside of A-day last year so i'm not sure if he is a big safety or small LB type of player. I'm also not sure what the difference between the 2 would be!

I know we can all pretty well assume that for the power run teams will play a bigger guy at this position and against the spread teams we'll play a smaller guy. So i imagine the answer to which we should recruit more of (LB or S) can be figured out by looking at the teams we play at what type of offense they run. When looking at this I think you can only look at SEC games as your OOC games change every year so you are not likely to recruit based on who you play OOC. With that in mind here are our conference games we play and what they run.

Ark - power

LSU - multiple

Miss St - spread but power style with Prescott at QB

South Car - multiple

Ol Miss - spread

TX A&M -spread

UGA - multiple

bama - power

So looking at our schedule I see 2 true power teams and 2 true spread teams. The rest of the opponents I don't believe can be pigeoned holed into any particular style kinda like AU on offense. Yeah we use a lot of spread formations but if a team tries to play us with 5 defensive backs exclusively we would run all day on them. So my conclusion is that we should recruit the safety and LB position evenly with ideally 3 at each position each year. Now that number will of course swing up or down based on how recruiting and attrition for that position has gone the last couple of years. If we see more teams in the SEC going to a pure spread we'll likely pick up the safety recruiting and if we see more teams go to the power we'll see more LBs get recruited. I currently see things moving in the spread direction so I expect the coaches to put more emphasis on "coverage" ability out of the star position and to me that means it will be more of a safety type of player that plays there.

I do think the fact that Johnson clasifies his defense as a 4-2-5 is pretty telling that he considers the position to be more a DB than a LB. Regardless the position is also defined by the need to be multiple in the players skill set so that makes this a very interesting debate for me as I think that anyone who tries to pigeon hole any single player type into that position is going to be proven wrong.

I'm excited to have a guy like Elijah commited for the position who seems to be the perfect fit for the position with RB speed and moves but a guy who is not afraid of contact and can hold his own at the point of contact.

[macauburn 6]

This kid is at 215 now. Could be 225 when he gets to AU. Where u at meta ?

Listed at 215. LOL is you seriously believe that he's that big. Rivals lists him at 189, Scout lists him at 200.

Take a look at a picture of the kid. If he's 215 then I'm 7 feet tall. I've been looking at this stuff for a while now...I've got a pretty good feel for gauging size (no-homo).

Hey, wait a minute, we don't want to disenfranchise any Sams of this world. We don't discriminate at Auburn.

[doc4aday 1,887]

He will be a 4 Star recruit no doubt next season!

[autan 737]

I think many of us were a little surprised that we took his committment this early. No way is he 6'-1, 215. Looks about 5'-11, 185 to me. However Sullivan must have been the No. 1 recruit on the board for Star. And that's good enough for me. Welcome aboard Elijah.

[metafour 4,969]

He measured 6-0 3/4 and 204 pounds recently.

[Rednilla 5,391]

Mikey, just because the thread's title says he is a linebacker doesn't mean anything about where he will play in college. Ben Grubbs played linebacker and tight end in high school and was listed as a defensive end as a recruit, and now he's a two time Pro Bowler at offensive guard.

However, if you insist that Ellis Johnson is lying to us all, that the Star position is really just another linebacker, then yes, I would say we probably need to sign 4-5 of them this year...as long as 2-3 of those are built like a big safety/small linebacker and can cover well. Of course, insisting that the Star is really just another linebacker echoes your lack of understanding about the philosophical difference between the 4-2-5 and the 4-3, but they say ignorance is bliss, so be happy!

[Mikey 16,595]

Mikey, just because the thread's title says he is a linebacker doesn't mean anything about where he will play in college. Ben Grubbs played linebacker and tight end in high school and was listed as a defensive end as a recruit, and now he's a two time Pro Bowler at offensive guard.

However, if you insist that Ellis Johnson is lying to us all, that the Star position is really just another linebacker, then yes, I would say we probably need to sign 4-5 of them this year...as long as 2-3 of those are built like a big safety/small linebacker and can cover well. Of course, insisting that the Star is really just another linebacker echoes your lack of understanding about the philosophical difference between the 4-2-5 and the 4-3, but they say ignorance is bliss, so be happy!

I'll bask in my ignorance while I watch Auburn sign four to five linebackers this coming year. That's the number we'd have been happy to sign last year had we been able to get them and since we only got two, I think they'll be putting forth an all out effort to build the necessary numbers at LB.

[Rednilla 5,391]

Mikey, just because the thread's title says he is a linebacker doesn't mean anything about where he will play in college. Ben Grubbs played linebacker and tight end in high school and was listed as a defensive end as a recruit, and now he's a two time Pro Bowler at offensive guard.

However, if you insist that Ellis Johnson is lying to us all, that the Star position is really just another linebacker, then yes, I would say we probably need to sign 4-5 of them this year...as long as 2-3 of those are built like a big safety/small linebacker and can cover well. Of course, insisting that the Star is really just another linebacker echoes your lack of understanding about the philosophical difference between the 4-2-5 and the 4-3, but they say ignorance is bliss, so be happy!

I'll bask in my ignorance while I watch Auburn sign four to five linebackers this coming year. That's the number we'd have been happy to sign last year had we been able to get them and since we only got two, I think they'll be putting forth an all out effort to build the necessary numbers at LB.

Wait, we only got two? Really? So Derrick Moncrief, who is at least as big as Elijah Sullivan projects to be, is a safety, not a linebacker? What if he plays the Star position? Does that make him a linebacker, too, or is he still a safety because recruiting services listed him as a safety? What of Khari Harding, who is listed as a safety at 6'0, 220? What makes him less of a linebacker when he lines up at Star, if you are to continue insisting that the Star is actually a linebacker?

And if we're going to go all out to sign 4-5 linebackers, how many safeties are we going to sign? Where does one draw the line between safety and linebacker in a defensive system that includes a position that is described by its coordinator as a hybrid of the two positions?

I can only hope that you are being deliberately obstinate, because the alternative doesn't speak too well for you.

[metafour 4,969]

He has no idea. The 'Star' is not a Linebacker. We run 2 Linebackers. When I talk about how many Linebackers we will or will not sign, I do not reference 'Star' recruits in the equation.

Do the math. Because of our system, we really only have ~5 to 6 LINEBACKERS that will actually play each year (barring injury)....and those 5th and 6th guys will rarely see the field in all reality except for cupcake games.

The fact that he seems to think our staff is actively looking to carry 10, 12 LINEBACKERS is absurd. That would be nothing less than a colossal waste of scholarships. There is nowhere for them to play. The target number has always been 8-9 on scholarship in any given year.

[metafour 4,969]

By the way; according to AUR the target number of LINEBACKER signees this year is (once again)......2.

And when we once again sign 2 (3 max), as expected, delusional old Mikey can come on here for the 100th time and try to spin his way into some BS about how the staff really wanted 6 because they were continuing to actively recruit 5-stars LMAO.

[Rednilla 5,391]

He has no idea. The 'Star' is not a Linebacker. We run 2 Linebackers. When I talk about how many Linebackers we will or will not sign, I do not reference 'Star' recruits in the equation.

Do the math. Because of our system, we really only have ~5 to 6 LINEBACKERS that will actually play each year (barring injury)....and those 5th and 6th guys will rarely see the field in all reality except for cupcake games.

The fact that he seems to think our staff is actively looking to carry 10, 12 LINEBACKERS is absurd. That would be nothing more than a colossal waste of scholarships. The target number has always been 8-9 on scholarship in any given year.

Well, to be fair, CEJ's rendition of the 4-2-5 seems to be a modified version of the 4-4, where the two "outside linebackers" shift closer/farther from the line to keep the offense guessing. I mean, there are quite a few of Tommy Tuberville's linebackers who would have played either Star or boundary safety for Johnson in this system, because xCTT really liked the more athletic types at LB.

This is why I think he simply hasn't grasped the fact that we really have changed to a different type of defensive system.

[Rednilla 5,391]

By the way; according to AUR the target number of LINEBACKER signees this year is (once again)......2.

And when we once again sign 2 (3 max), as expected, delusional old Mikey can come on here for the 100th time and try to spin his way into some BS about how the staff really wanted 6 because they were continuing to actively recruit 5-stars LMAO.

Either that or he will cling to the Elijah Sullivan types being linebackers and declare himself right all along.