Scouting Combine Linebackers: Davis-Gaither’ing No Moss

Part 1 of our three-part series on the 31 off-the-ball linebackers includes Appalachian State's Akeem Davis-Gaither and three Big Ten players.

Author:
Bill Huber
Publish date:
Feb 22, 2020 8:47 PM EST

Part 1 of our three-part series on the 31 off-the-ball linebackers includes Appalachian State's Akeem Davis-Gaither and three Big Ten players. (Underclassmen are noted with an asterisk.)

Joe Bachie, Michigan State (6-2, 231): Bachie was third-team all-Big Ten as a senior despite being declared ineligible for a performance-enhancing substance. In eight games, he had 71 tackles, including 3.5 sacks and 8.5 for losses, along with one interception and four pass breakups. He was a second-team midseason All-American. A two-year captain, his four-year totals were 285 tackles, 27.5 tackles for losses, five forced fumbles, eight sacks and five interceptions.

While being ineligible, he stayed around the team. “Joe is still start part of our football team, comes to practices and is basically still a student coach,” coach Mark Dantonio told MLive.com. “Want him to be involved with us. Plans to be at the game Saturday (against Illinois) as well, he's just ineligible to play now as we go through this, but we want to keep him a part of our process. I think that's what we want to do, that's what he would like to do as well.” The team honored him on Senior Day. He’s an excitable guy; he once broke a controller after playing particularly well in “Fornite.” As he told the Lansing State Journal: "I think one time I had nine kills and I actually broke that controller because I got so excited after the game that I threw it.” In high school, when the starting running back went down, it was Bachie to the rescue. Despite nothing more than pregame reps, he rushed for six touchdowns. “As opposed to other kids where not only do you have to verbally explain stuff but you have to rep it out and physically demonstrate it time after time, Joey, you could just describe with words and he would understand what was going on and do it perfectly basically,” Berea-Midpark coach Ray Hradek told the Lansing State Journal. “Point being is he’s your best player, so wherever he could score, that’s where we put him. Where every time he could touch the ball, that’s where we put him. “And then just managing the defense and being the dude that could just tackle everybody and cover passes – he was a complete football player.”

Markus Bailey, Purdue (6-1, 240): Bailey, a four-year starter, missed most of his senior season with a torn ACL suffered at practice. He also missed most of his true-freshman season of 2015 with a torn ACL. In 40 career games, he recorded 324 tackles, 14.5 sacks, 28 tackles for losses and six interceptions. Four of those interceptions came as a redshirt freshman, and he had a career-high 115 tackles as a junior.

“When I decided to come back, I was looking forward to playing another season and being a leader. I I thought I could have a season like my junior year. It was tough for me to accept it at first. At some point, I just had to tell myself ‘it is what it is.’ I needed to start worrying about my career moving forward while still trying to be around the guys as much as I could. It was frustrating. But it did give me more time for my hip to continue to heal and I plan to be good go with my knee by April for the draft. I should be fine.”

Bailey is from Columbus, Ohio, and clinched an upset of the Buckeyes in 2018 with a pick-six. “I said all week it was just another game. It just wasn’t another game. I wasn’t going to give them bulletin board material. I had extra motivation for this game and I’m so happy I was able to come out and perform the way I did.” At first, he admitted to being “salty” and “devastated” that his hometown school didn’t want him. He was a second-year captain as a senior, a three-time all-Big Ten selection in academics and decided to come back for his senior season as a graduate. He likes to study Khalil Mack.

Francis Bernard, Utah (6-1, 235): Bernard was first-team all-Pac-12 as a senior, when he moved into the starting lineup. He finished second on the team with 85 tackles, including 7.5 five for losses, and added two interceptions. He had a 58-yard pick-six against BYU – the school where he spent his first two years. He spent the 2015 and 2016 seasons with the Cougars. In 2016, he had 80 tackles and three interceptions.

Bernard became a father in October 2018. Little Lennox weighed just 2 pounds, 2 ounces. He arrived four weeks early after his mom, former BYU swimmer Alexis Johnson, collapsed due to high blood pressure caused by preeclampsia. “We’ve had ups and downs,” Johnson told the Salt Lake Tribune, “but he definitely showed me who he was, those few months. Every single night, he’d sleep on that couch (at the hospital). … He just stepped up and was there for me.” At BYU, he played running back as a freshman in 2015 but moved to linebacker as a sophomore after Jamaal Williams emerged as the starter. “It was tough. I came in, had the hot hand and played a good freshman year. It was tough because I had a good freshman year and then was asked to play linebacker because I had never done it before,” Bernard told the Daily Utah Chronicle. It went downhill from there, with a DUI arrest leading to his departure from BYU. “Things can be taken away from you in an instant,” he told Deseret.com. “I was fortunate enough that coach (Kyle) Whittingham and the Utah staff was able to take me here and kind of help me get back on my feet.”

Daniel Bituli, Tennessee (6-3, 252): With 88 tackles as a senior, Bituli became only the second Vol to lead Tennessee in tackles for three straight seasons, wrapping up his 44-game career with 266 stops. He was second-team all-SEC as a senior, when he added three sacks, five tackles for losses, one forced fumble and one blocked kick.

Bituli was born in the Congo before leaving when he was 1 1/2. “Our people were fighting with the people from Uganda,” he told USA Today. “My mother started receiving death threats saying people were going to kill her because she was associated with part of her family that was involved.” The family stayed at a refugee camp in Cameroon before landing in Tennessee when he was 3. “Football’s hard, but the things I went through growing up was definitely harder,” Bituli told The Associated Press. “It’s a life-and-death situation.” It wasn’t easy in the United States, either. "My family was fortunate enough to get here to the states," Bituli told the school athletics site. "The lifestyle as a whole was difficult. My parents didn't know how to speak English and both went to school. My dad worked two jobs just to feed us. My mom stayed at home and took care of the kids every day. My siblings and I were really fortunate to have the parents that we have."

Shaun Bradley, Temple (6-1, 230): Bradley cranked out seasons of 85 tackles (10 for losses) as a sophomore, 78 tackles (four for losses) as a junior and 86 tackles (eight for losses) as a senior. One of those tackles was a game-saving, goal-line tackle against Maryland. That gave him four-year totals of 257 tackles, 22 TFLs, three interceptions, three forced fumbles and eight passes defensed.

He was awarded jersey No. 5 for his final two seasons. Only the toughest players at Temple get a single-digit number. His final game was the 50th of his career, including 38 starts. “It’s been an honor and a blessing,” Bradley told the Philly Inquirer after his final game. “Coming out of high school, there was Temple and maybe one other school. I instantly fell in love with it.” Even that one school wasn’t a sure thing. He committed to Temple, only to learn the school had used his scholarship allotment. So, he took classes at Rowan College for a semester before going to Temple in spring 2016. “My dad used to tell me, ‘What if they forget and don’t have your scholarship anymore?’” Bradley told the Bucks County Courier Times.

Jordyn Brooks, Texas Tech (6-1, 245): Brooks earned several All-American honors and was a finalist for the Butkus Award following a senior season in which he led the team with 108 tackles, 20 tackles for losses and three sacks. Over the course of four seasons, he recorded 6.5 sacks, 32 tackles for losses, 360 total tackles and two forced fumbles. He paced the team in tackles three times.

Brooks received only one in-state offer from a Power 5 school and wasn’t considered much of an NFL prospect entering his senior season. “He’s a guy we liked over the summer, but he’s risen on our board about as much as any player in the country,” said Jim Nagy, executive director of the Senior Bowl and a longtime NFL scout. “I don’t know if anyone has made a bigger jump at linebacker this fall than Jordyn.” Extra study time with first-year defensive coordinator Keith Patterson helped. “He didn’t force me to come up there two days a week and go meet with him. He just kind of kept mentioning it: ‘I’m telling you; this is what can get you better.’ And I just took his advice, and we meet probably three days a week from time that’s not mandatory to be up here. Just still going over the game plan. Just keep going over the game plan.”

Cameron Brown, Penn State (6-5, 233): Brown fell just short of 200 tackles in his career. He tallied 73 (with 6.5 for losses) with six passes defensed and three forced fumbles as a junior and 72 (with 5.5 for losses) and four passes defensed as a senior to give him a four-year total of 198 stops.

“The guys will know that I always fought for them,” Brown said before the 51st and final game of his career. “I fought for the coaches in the locker room, I fought for the players with the coaches, and I feel like if that's what I can leave here with, I'm good.” Penn State is nicknamed Linebacker U. However, the school hasn’t had a linebacker drafted since 2013. “Cam has played a lot of football here, a lot of hard snaps,” defensive coordinator and linebackers coach Brent Pry told StateCollege.com before the season. “He’s probably a guy who should have redshirted and we couldn’t afford to do it. I’ll never forget that up at Michigan he played 75 true snaps as a freshman at 205 pounds. So, he’s been through it. He’s got a unique perspective on things.” A cousin, Andre Davis, played receiver in the NFL for nine seasons.

Akeem Davis-Gaither, Appalachian State (6-2, 219): Davis-Gaither earned some All-American accolades and was named Sun Belt Conference Defensive Player of the Year as a senior after posting 104 tackles, 14.5 tackles for losses, five sacks, eight pass breakups, one interception and one blocked field goal. While those numbers came against lesser competition, the interception came in the second half of an upset of North Carolina and the block clinched that victory. The eight pass breakups ranked fourth nationally among non-defensive backs.

Davis-Gaither was a two-star recruit from Thomasville, N.C., due in part to weighing only 175 pounds. “I didn’t take my diet seriously and with me being one of the few that went on to play college ball from my class, I couldn’t do the same things that they did. The first thing that the staff did was to set me up with a nutritionist and my eating habits weren’t all that well, which led to why I was so light. After my freshman year on campus, I got up to 195, then 205, then 210 and then 215-plus this season.” His father is receivers coach at Western Michigan. His position coach was D.J. Smith, a former App. State linebacker and Packers linebacker. “For this scheme, he’s your guy,” Smith said. “A guy that’s big, long, can run, is smart and has a high football IQ. You expect that from that guy.”

Troy Dye, Oregon (6-4, 226): Dye led the Ducks in tackles all four seasons, finishing his career with 397 tackles, 15 sacks, 44 tackles for losses, five interceptions, 21 passes defensed and three forced fumbles. As a senior, he had a career-low 84 tackles but career highs of two interceptions and two forced fumbles. His numbers were hurt by a broken thumb. “You don’t really understand how much you use your dominant hand,” he said.

As a freshman in 2016, the Ducks went 4-8. “I think it build the foundation for the senior. Without that year, we don’t have the passion, the aggression, that we have now. Because, I mean, we were getting our face kicked in for the majority of the season. It was just a blood-bath out there — and we weren’t the ones doing the killing. We were the ones getting killed. That really kind of set the standard for us, to look back like, OK, we can’t do that again.” Dye and Oregon track star Makenzie Dunmore are due to become parents in April. He considered entering the draft last year but returned for his senior campaign. He was happy about his decision. “There’s things that I’ve done that you can’t take back, undefeated at home, winning the Pac-12 Championship, beating Stanford and Washington on the road, SC on the road. It’s great to check those things off the bucket list.”

Cale Garrett, Missouri (6-3, 230): Garrett had back-to-back seasons of 100-plus tackles as a sophomore (105 tackles) and junior (112 tackles). However, he played in only five games as a senior due to a left pectoral tendon. He suffered the injury on Oct. 5 against Troy but played through the pain that day to record three tackles for losses and two interceptions, including a pick-six. “I was all the way up here, top of the mountain, playing at my best,” Garrett told the Athletic. “I think that’s what stung the most.”

He loves to hike. It represents a way to get away from it all – and much more. “That’s what I like about it, just being in solitude or changing up the pace in your life,” he told the Columbian Missourian. “Not necessarily like you’re avoiding your problems, but you’re setting down your life for a little while. And I think it’s almost beneficial more so than if you were to continue doing what you do in your everyday grind. It’s a great way to break up monotony, I think, and then you’re fresh going back into it. It’s almost like going out somewhere and meditating.” After one closed recruiting door after another, Garrett was headed to Navy. At the last moment, Missouri had an opening and offered. Playing in the SEC was his dream but he wasn’t necessarily happy about it. “I still have flashbacks to being that guy with something to prove. That drives me,” he told the Columbian Missourian. When not tackling running backs or tackling grueling hikes, he plays piano and composes music. As cornerback DeMarkus Acy put it to Rivals, “Cale’s a different type of dude.”

Willie Gay Jr., Mississippi State* (6-2, 240): Gay recorded 48 tackles, five sacks and two interceptions during a breakout sophomore year. However, he was caught in an academic scandal as a junior and recorded 28 tackles in five games. When he wasn’t suspended for eight games, he made a difference. "I call him the 'Eraser,'" junior linebacker Erroll Thompson told CDispatch.com. "If someone isn't fitting right up front, he's so fast and so twitchy and just a freak of nature; he just erases the mistakes."

Initially, the Starkville native was headed to Mississippi. Instead, he changed his mind and stayed home. “I was really just ready to get away from here,” Gay told DJournal.com. “I’d been here all my life and I was ready to leave.” Ultimately, he wasn’t ready to leave. “I get the benefit of being an SEC athlete in my hometown and I get to see my mom, my dad and my family every day,” Gay said. “I get to watch my nephews and nieces grow up so it’s been a blessing. It was the best decision.” Before the Music City Bowl to cap the 2019 season, he got into a fight with the starting quarterback and inflicted a facial fracture.