Brayden and Kamar go to the Big House: Brayden Platt's commitment completes a linebacker crew that can wreck the Big Ten

 

Four-star linebacker Brayden Platt committed to the Ducks on Monday, his mother's birthday. 

For many years the Big Ten has been college football's Black and Blue Division, the conference of neck rolls, birdcage helmets, tackles as stout as oak trees, burly fullbacks and tight ends who could point the way to Ann Arbor by picking up a horse-drawn plow. November games are played with fans in thick gloves and earmuffs, dancing to "Jump Around" in swirls of snow.

The conference has evolved some from those roots without completely straying. Oregon's electric offense will be right at home with the fleet receivers at Ohio State and the explosive tailbacks at Michigan.

To win in this company, though, the Ducks need a new level of toughness on defense, something Dan Lanning knows about after winning a national championship at Georgia with one of the most stifling defenses of the last forty years in the most prolific era of offensive football.

Lanning and his staff want to build a complete team, and that means a defensive squad that can pressure, disrupt and sometimes intimidate and destroy elite offenses. 

They've gone to work finding the players to do that, and so far in the 2024 class they've succeeded in a stunning way.

In Brayden Platt, Kingston Lopa, Kamar Mothudi and Dylan Williams, they've brought in a linebacker class that can hit, run, and swarm under plays from one sideline to the other. They're physical, intimidating and fast, committed to becoming great players at the college level and beyond.

Speaking about Platt on the 247Sports commitment show, recruiting analyst Brandon Huffman called him a classic Big Ten middle linebacker.  "He's just a pure middle linebacker who wants to hit you and let you know that they've just knocked you over," he said.

Having a guy like that in the middle, surrounded by Lopa, Mothudi and Williams, 'backers who provide relentless pursuit and the ability to cover, the Ducks will be ready to take names in their new conference. It takes coaching and preparation, but you've gotta have the players.