Michigan Wolverines' LB Room Must Take One More Step to Reach New Level

Coach Alex Whittingham spoke about the Wolverines' new-look linebacker room.

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The biggest question mark on Michigan's defense entering the season was at linebacker — for good reason. Michigan lost its top three LBs from last season: Ernest Hausmann, Jimmy Rolder, and Cole Sullivan.

But the cupboard wasn't bare; there were some new faces, along with raw talent. In two games, the Wolverines' LB room has been solid. Troy Bowles leads the team with 21 tackles, while North Dakota State transfer Nathaniel Staehling has 16.

They have been good and made plays against Oklahoma. But how can the Wolverines' young unit become great? Former Kansas City Chiefs coach and current Michigan LB coach Alex Whittingham says cleaning up missed tackles and fully learning the scheme is the next step.

"Yeah, just continue to develop, continue to grow, continue to understand the scheme," Whittingham said of his unit. "We've changed up our scheme a few times this year. We were in a lot of four down, 4-2 front week one.

"We kind of mixed in some 3-3 last week, and who knows what we're going to do this week. But just continue to embrace their roles in the scheme. We got to clean up some missed tackles that we had last week."

Nathaniel Staehling was Michigan's man

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Michigan fans wanted Rasheem Biles and Cade Uluave from the transfer portal to help solve its need at LB. But instead, the Wolverines landed Nathaniel Staehling and he was who Michigan wanted all along. He didn't have the gaudy stats like Biles or Uluave, but he fit the scheme that Jay Hill was going to run at Michigan.

In fact, Whittingham said he was scouting Staehling during his second or third day on the job, and he reminded Whittingham of former BYU LB Jack Kelly. Last season, in 2025, Kelly had 51 tackles for the Cougars and led BYU with 10 sacks and 13.5 TFLs. While Staehling hasn't shown the ability to get home yet, he has shown his willingness to tackle and be in the right position.

"Yeah, so that was my, shoot, second or third day on the job was evaluating him,'" revealed Whittingham. "And once he got into the portal, kind of picking out what we needed and what we wanted out of the portal. And he was a guy that definitely stood out.

"One thing that stood out to me was there was a lot of similarities between him and who Coach Hill had at BYU, Jack Kelly, a linebacker there. So they're about identical size-wise. And just movement skills and all that, they were very similar. So I thought he'd be a great fit as far as the scheme goes."

Whittingham believes there could be eight LBs ready to play

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It's safe to say that both Bowles and Staehling are Michigan's top two LBs, but Chase Taylor has played a lot — while having shining moments — along with both Aisea Moa and Nathaniel Owusu-Boateng.

That's five right there who have played snaps, but Whittingham says not to count out both freshmen Aden Reeder and Markel Dabney, along with transfer Max Alford, who is coming off an ACL injury.

"And so guys have kind of slotted into their roles," said Whittingham "But I think going forward, there's going to be even more, possibly six, seven, eight guys that we can rotate in as the young rookies come along. A den Reeder or Markel Dabney.Get them more into the system.

"Max Alford is a guy that's going to start showing up. He's coming off a ACL that he's been rehabbing. But he's looking better and better every week. Had a great practice yesterday. It's a great, I think, situation right now with the depth that we have."

And with Michigan taking on UTEP this weekend, the Wolverines are heavy favorites and fans could start to see some new players sprinkle into the action. Fans can tune in at 3:30 p.m. ET on Big Ten Network.

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