He's the third leading tackler on the team, only one tackle behind the second leading tackler. No one on the defense played well against Clemson. Your MLB is NOT usually your leading tackler against a triple option Navy team; a DB usually is. He hasn't been great, he has had a few complete WTF moments. Is it really too much to ask, for people to quit killing the kid? I don't care if people want him to play less downs, and get his backup some more PT. But there are a number of people crying that "he sucks" after every game. And it's just not warranted.
You have a point that he is a young man and sometimes we are too critical of these kids who play college sports.
That being said, Schmidt really is outclassed physically at this level. I think the coaches leave him in there because he gets everyone lined up and he has a greater than 50% change to make the play in his direction. As you said, his backup must not be able to reach those thresholds or they would play him.
I have a hard time believing, however, that they couldn't rotate another LB in there, possibly from another position, and get him some reps if Morgan looks like he is not 'getting it'. We have some pretty good LB depth that should be an option (and maybe the team is working on that as we speak).
The other thing that makes Schmidt (and the defense as a whole) look bad is the aggresive blitzing defense BVG has implemented. Stats pretty much show those defenses are boom or bust, leading to the inconsistent performance quarter to quarter and game to game that the Irish seem to have.
I further think that BVGs decisions to blitz more often than not to create pressure stem from the lack of recruiting several high quality pass rushing DL. The current DEs are more run stuffers than pass rushers. I think our DTs are probably better rushers than our DEs, relatively speaking.
Next year if a couple DEs have good seasons and our MLB replacing Joe is above average, then I think we see a substantially more consistent defense.
