The trust-fund, Railroad Earth hippies don’t really deserve this guy.  Why?  Because they don’t understand what they’ve got.  Many of you probably have no idea who Brian Cabral is, so we might as well run over his resume’ real quick.

Step aside, Wannstache, good linebacker play comes with this package.

Cabral graduated from Colorado in 1978 and was a 4th round draft pick of the Atlanta Falcons.  I don’t specifically remember him at the time, but he was a special teams ace for the Chicago Bears from 1981-1986.  Cabral’s pro career was over by 1986 and he returned to Boulder to coach linebackers in 1989.  He’s been there ever since.  Below is a list of coaching staffs that have come and gone throughout Cabral’s tenure:

Bill McCartney

Rick Neuheisel

Gary Barnett

Dan Hawkins (current)

No matter their reputation after leaving Colorado, all those guys were at some point in their careers considered good coaches.  Here’s a few names of players he has coached:

Chad Brown (All Big Eight)

Greg Biekert (All Big Eight)

Ted Johnson (All Big 8, Butkus Award Runner-up)

Matt Russell (All Big 12, Butkus Award Winner)

Michael Jones (All Big Something)

Thaddaeus Washington

Jashon Sykes

Ron Merkerson

Hannibal Navies

Sean Tufts

Drew Wahlroos

Jordan Dizon (All Big 12)

Biekert, Brown, Johnson, Merkerson, Navies, Russell, Tufts, Wahlroos and Dizon were all NFL draft picks.  Eight of them rank higher than Cabral’s 15th listing (297) for career tackles in their respective terms at Colorado.  It’s arguable that he might be the most over-qualified positional coach at the college level.  I don’t know this for a fact, but I’m guessing Cabral has passed on numerous opportunities to leave Boulder.  It seems as if every coach that rolls in and out understands the luxury of having a guy as loyal and competent as Cabral on the staff.  So, now that we’ve qualified him, I’ll explain why in the hell we’re talking about him.

It is of my amateur opinion that Cabral is the gold standard for linebacking play in the Midwest, and maybe the country.  Therefore, I always like to digest a couple of quarters of Colorado football each season to see what he’s up to.  Cabral always seems to be a little ahead of the curve as to what he wants in a linebacker.  He was going smaller and faster as early as anyone and it didn’t take him long to mold the uber-spread linebacker in Jordan Dizon.  And, it didn’t take long for Bob Stoops to find Travis Lewis.

Dizon held a B.J. Penn black belt in QB jiu-jitsu. 

It’s tough to replace a guy like Dizon, so I was curious as to how Cabral might be playing it this year with the same caliber of talent as everyone else. 

- First thing that jumps out at me is that no one is over 230 pounds and that’s at MLB.  He’s rolling at about 215 on the strongside and 225 on the weakside.  Every one of them can kind of run.  Or at least, Cabral has them in position to give them an appearance to be kind of running. 

- I’ve been watching 4-3 defenses play all year.  They’re typically being aligned within 4 to 5 yards of the line of scrimmage.  Cabral has his between 6 and 7 yards deep. 

- His DTs aren’t all conference necessarily, although George Hypolite and Brandon Nicolas are both solid players.  Yet, everything is for the most part being safely contained within 4 yards of the line of scrimmage. 

- I didn’t need to see any more than that, so maybe they got better or worse after I turned the channel.  The Colorado offense is like watching someone pull a buffalo calf.

So what is Cabral thinking here?  I’m not sure and your guess is probably as good as mine, but here’s what I think. 

1.  Obviously, he’s gone smaller and faster than some of the early run stuffers of his career like Biekert and Johnson, especially at outside linebacker.  That makes sense to me since they’re mostly required to match up with slot receivers running through zone or cover ground quickly on blitzes.

2.  He plays the space created by spread offenses to his advantage.  Since most Big 12 schools are attempting some variation of zone blocking in the run game with guys the size of a yak and built to impede the progress of speed rushers, they aren’t very good at getting downfield and getting underneath someone’s pad level.  They’re outstanding at smothering linebackers, who fill gaps at an average pace and play downhill. 

Tibetian Yak, rendered harmless by Buddhist Monk.

Now, theory #1 is pretty self explanatory, but #2 may require some expansion and arouses some questions like: 

- Well, isn’t downhill play something you covet in a linebacker?  Yes, it is, very much so.  However, with today’s Big 12 running game built around stretch plays, zone read and draws, it’s very easy for a wired up, downhill linebacker to run himself out of plays.  That’s how Paul Johnson makes a living rolling up 400 yards on the ground against Georgia.  Offensive-minded coaches like Urban Meyer, Paul Johnson and Mike Leach have built a reputation by exploiting the over pursuit of fast defenses.  Almost to the extent, that defensive coordinators over compensate and make their teams “unfast” schematically.  Not Cabral.  At 7 yards deep, it causes the bulldozing yaks to become like a herd of elephants trying to step on mice versus one yoked up coherent unit.  The mammoth tackles are forced to chase the smaller, quicker linebackers and block them in space.  At this point, Cabral’s unit transforms into an orchestrated group of cape-wielding Matadors successfully avoiding danger and perfectly tuned to embed their swords deep into the breast plate of a tailback. 

By allowing his linebackers an extra 2 yards at the snap of the ball, they are allotted almost double the recognition time of the aggressive gap pluggers now within the yak’s lethal 3 yard circle of death.  Since running is one thing they typically do well, Cabral will ask his guys to hang tight in the middle of the field until the play crosses their face, which allows them to play optimal inside-out football at linebacker.  Less thinking and recognition is required at this depth as common mental errors of 2 gap responsibility are neutralized by speed.  The fleet linebackers are allowed to take the quickest route to the football whether that be underneath or over the top of a potential blocker.  Most yaks become disoriented near the 5 yard mark, and you’ll often see 2 Colorado linebackers hunting down your stretch play with the efficiency of a pack of hybrid wolfacabras. 

Well, that’s about all I can tell you about Colorado football and what the Stache has been tinkering with as of late.  I also could have summed that up by saying all Cabral is effectively doing is broadening the blocking angles required for immobile offensive linemen to gain outside leverage on undersized linebackers, who can run.

North American Plains Yak, rendered harmless by Brian Cabral.

Your thoughts?  Scipio Tex at Barking Carnival has also paid proper homage to Cabral in the past.