Who Is The Modern Linebacker U? One Member of the Browns Attended

In a series from TheMMQB of evaluating the top universities for producing NFL talent over the past ten years, Gary Gramling and Reid Foster take a look at the linebacker position and the Cleveland Browns have a player that attended their answer.

Gary Gramling and Reid Foster of TheMMQB spearheaded a project to determine which schools have produced the best players at a particular position, branding them the new U for that particular position. One of the positions they are discussing is linebacker. There was a time when it was understood that Penn State was Linebacker U and depending on what Micah Parsons is able to do the rest of his career in Happy Valley, that reference will likely come up again.

Over the past ten years, based on the data Gramling and Foster came up with, their answer for linebacker is Alabama. They've had a number of them go in the first and second round including C.J. Mosley, Rashaan Evans and Dont'a Hightower and at least two of those players have been good players.

The Cleveland Browns drafted Mack Wilson in the fifth round of the 2019 NFL Draft. Forced into action due to injury that sacked Chris Kirksey for the year, he ended up playing in every single game, starting 14 of them. For a player that only started 15 games in his collegiate career and was encouraged to return to college for a senior year, the transition to the NFL was a difficult one.

Wilson made his share of plays, but he struggled his rookie season, as one might expect for someone thrown into the deep end as he was. He was able to almost double his salary for the year based on player performance bonuses, which had to be welcome news, since he largely declared for the NFL out of financial hardship.

Wilson had to see both Kirksey and Joe Schobert leave the team this offseason and will have a new coaching staff to learn from, but he has an opportunity to make the case he can be the answer at the weak side linebacker.