Barrett Ruud talks Luke Reimer, Nick Henrich and rest of linebacker room

Nebraska’s inside linebackers coach Barrett Ruud was on ‘Sports Nightly’ Wednesday to break down his position room.

It was a quick interview, lasting only about nine minutes, so here are the quick hits from the coach:

>> Ruud was without starter Luke Reimer and backup Garrett Snodgrass this spring as both were rehabbing injuries. While Ruud never wants to see his players dealing with injuries, the situation did allow Ruud to see other players get reps.

“Getting guys and being able to match up different guys throughout the spring and get guys extra reps was the benefit,” Ruud said.

>> Ruud’s room will be led by the two returning starters in the 6-foot-1, 225-pound Reimer and the 6-3, 225-pound Nick Henrich, two in-state products. After growing up in Kansas, Reimer went on to star at Lincoln North Star High School while Henrich is an Omaha Burke grad.

While they make one of the Big Ten’s best linebacker duos, Ruud thinks they have yet to reach their potential.

“I think the biggest benefit for this year for him (Henrich) is this was the first offseason where he’s been truly healthy,” Ruud said. “That makes a big difference where you can get a full year’s session in the weight room, the growth you get from an athletic standpoint is big. He had no restrictions lifting, and in the past he’s either had a shoulder surgery, a knee, he’s had something he’s had to rehab from.

"So he’s had a complete full year to really attack the weight room, and I think that’s going to show on the field.”

While Henrich was able to avoid an injury, Reimer wasn't as lucky. That’s not usually the case with Reimer, who has stayed clean injury-wise for most of his career until this year.

“The good thing with both of those guys is they both have really been studious,” Ruud said. “They spend a lot of time studying their own games. I think that extra year of experience for each of them starting full-time for the first time in their careers for a full season, they know really what to expect and how to manage their bodies for an entire season.”

>> With Reimer out, it opened the door of opportunity for others, most notably Eteva Mauga-Clements, the former junior-college product from Diablo Valley Community College in California.

The 6-1, 220-pound Mauga-Clements, who Ruud calls “Va,” has played in 20 games the past two seasons at Nebraska and had recorded six tackles, five of which came last season.

“I think Va, along with Ernest Hausmann, probably benefited from the spring more than anybody else,” Ruud said. “Just being able to take a bunch of first-team reps and working with Nick. This is his third year in the program, and he’s really made a huge jump as far as just understanding all the intricacies and the techniques that we teach.

"When he came to us from Diablo Valley, he basically just blitzed every play, so he had to learn a new way of playing linebacker. But he made a huge jump this past spring in my opinion.”

>> Hausmann, the in-state product from Columbus, has been everything Ruud and the rest of the coaches were hoping he’d be when they signed him in the 2022 class.

Because he was an early enrollee, Hausmann put himself in good position to see the field in his true freshman season, most likely as a special teams player. Ruud said things started to click for Hausmann around the 10th practice of the spring.

“That’s what you always look for with young guys, is when does it start to click,” Ruud added. “‘OK, this is why we do this, this is why we do that,’ and tying everything together. I’m excited to see how he progresses in the fall.”

>> The 6-3, 220-pound Snodgrass, a native of York, Nebraska, needs to be a jack-of-all-trades, Ruud said. Snodgrass knows both linebacker positions and is a key special teams player, someone the coaching staff can count on.

“You can really count on him, and we put a lot on his plate mentally because he can handle it,” Ruud said. “He’s very invested in football, and he likes spending the time getting better.”

>> The two redshirt freshmen in the room, Mikai Gbayor and Randolph Kpai, had slow starts to their college career due to injuries. The 6-2, 220-pound Gbayor, who’s from New Jersey, sustained an injury during his senior season in high school and it lingered into college. Kpai, a 6-3, 205-pounder from South Dakota, wound up hurting a shoulder in his first fall camp of his career in Lincoln.

Both linebackers were full-go this past spring, however, so Ruud wants to continue to see progress from them.

“I’m looking for those guys to make a big jump,” Ruud said. “A lot of times when you really get those first real reps in spring practice — I call it learning through the burn — you have to make your mistakes to really understand the system and understand the techniques, and hopefully get some of those out of the way to allow them to make a big jump this fall.”

>> Seth Malcolm, a former eight-man player from Iowa, is “still learning the difference between eight-man and 11-man,” according to Ruud.

“That’s not an easy task. I came up with Scott Shanle, and he made that look very, very easy, but that’s not the norm,” Ruud said. “It is a big jump, but the good thing with Seth is he’s starting to get a lot stronger, and I think he’s getting more confident as well.”

>> Grant Tagge has made a good impression. The 6-1, 200-pound walk-on from Omaha Westside came in right away in 2020 and showed Ruud he was a “football player.”

“He understands it. You can put him in a lot of different positions,” Ruud said. “I know when he was a true freshman, we’d do the young guys’ scrimmage, and if somebody was short a dude, he’d have to go play safety or nickel, and he’d know all the calls and how to execute it.

"I think he’s becoming a very good inside linebacker, and he’s going to play a huge role for us on special teams.”

>> Ruud gave a shout out to Jake Archer, the walk-on from Omaha Skutt Catholic. The 6-1, 200-pounder broke his thumb last year and wasn’t able to go through contact drills this past spring.

“He should be good to go this fall and I’m excited to see what he can do, hopefully get on the field, maybe on special teams,” Ruud said.