Struggled ? MSU passed for a whopping 123 yards. I'll take that kind of "struggle" every week.
We didn't get that struggle this past week. Despite you not being able to realize when a position group struggles in areas despite good overall defense, the LB struggle continued at UNC and why we got (for ND) a poor defensive performance. The majority of big/long pass plays were on the LBs in zone coverage, terrible outside run leverage, and outside of KVA catching the ball from traore's big hit, the LBs flat out didn't play well vs UNC or make any plays.
It's a concern that's more than just one game now, and hopefully gets fixed or teams are going to exploit ND's LBs in zone more with high low concepts. I'm more confident in Shuler playing better and DJ playing more instead of Sanders than I am our LBs all of a sudden start playing their lanes properly and re routing when in zone coverage. It's just too easy against them at times. A large chunk of it is bowen, he's never been good in coverage. They've started doing that a little bit with success recently, but he still struggled saturday. When Tae comes back, we really need to ensure talich and Tae are on the field in all obvious passing downs.