The Chuck Bednarik Award is annually given to the best defensive player in college football.<\/p>\n
The past two times it\u2019s been given to a true, off-ball (inside) linebacker, the Pittsburgh Steelers selected that player in the ensuing NFL Draft.<\/p>\n
Could they make it three in a row with Texas Tech\u2019s Jacob Rodriguez?<\/p>\n
Projected as a Day 2 pick, Rodriguez is coming off a dynamic senior season in which he helped lead Texas Tech to the College Football Playoff and finished fifth in Heisman Trophy balloting.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust doing the work and seeing it pay off is the most gratifying part,\u201d Rodriguez said at the NFL combine, referencing the 2025 season. \u201cEverybody puts in the work, everybody works hard, but having the opportunity for that work to come to fruition, it was a great season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was more proud of what the team was able to accomplish this year and what we did for west Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n
A native of Wichita Falls in the Lone Star State, Rodriguez took extra meaning in lifting Texas Tech to its first Big 12 championship. His path to star status in Lubbock and as a linebacker for the Texas Tech program was anything but linear.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez began his college career at Virginia \u2014 as a quarterback.<\/p>\n
But after a freshman season in which he appeared in 12 games and took snaps at quarterback, wide receiver, tight end and running back, Rodriguez transferred closer to home \u2014 but without a scholarship in hand at Texas Tech.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m one year removed from high school where I feel like I was a decently high recruited guy,\u201d Rodriguez said, \u201cto now I\u2019m a walk-on three hours from home. The hardest is I\u2019m trying to make the team. There\u2019s no NIL, but I was just trying to make the team. I was just trying not to be cut.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodriguez successfully transitioned to linebacker but was mostly a special teams player in that 2022 sophomore season. Then, his 2023 season was cut short by a foot injury.<\/p>\n
But in 2024, Rodriguez began to show how dynamic he could be by filling up the stat sheet: 77 solo tackles (third in the country), 127 overall tackles (127th nationally), a team-high 101\u20442 tackles for loss, five sacks, three forced fumbles, four pass breakups and an interception.<\/p>\n
That was good enough for first-team All-Big 12 honors, but Rodriguez would top that and more in 2025 when he became a first-team All-American after leading the country with seven forced fumbles in addition to 128 tackles (11 for loss), four interceptions, six pass breakups and a sack.<\/p>\n
\u201cStatistically I\u2019d like to think (I was impressive), but more so what we did as a team,\u201d said Rodriguez, who was a captain.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s something that means (the world) to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such a mindset lends insight to Rodriguez the person, who is married to an active-duty Aviation Officer and helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army, Emma.<\/p>\n
Jacob Rodriguez\u2019s maturity is commensurate with him turning 24 before his rookie NFL season begins. The most recent time the Steelers took an inside linebacker in the top half of the draft, they also selected a 24-year-old in Payton Wilson (Round 3 in 2024).<\/p>\n
Wilson also was a Bednarik Award winner who was coming off a stellar redshirt senior season. The previous inside linebacker who won the Bednarik before Wilson was Tyler Matakevich in 2015. The Steelers selected Matakevich in the seventh round the following spring.<\/p>\n
They can\u2019t wait anywhere near that long this year if they want Rodriguez, whom they chose to invite to their facility for one of their 30 allotted official draft visits.<\/p>\n
As NFL Network draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah recently put it in regards to Rodriguez: \u201cThere\u2019s no chance he gets out of the second round.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ohio State\u2019s Sonny Styles almost assuredly will be the top inside linebacker chosen at the draft in Pittsburgh next week. Georgia\u2019s CJ Allen, Texas\u2019 Anthony Hill Jr. and Cincinnati\u2019s Jake Golday figure to be among the next ILBs off the board.<\/p>\n
Though the Steelers have Wilson, Patrick Queen, Malik Harrison, Cole Holcomb and Carson Bruener at the position, they still might add to that room and are believed to be giving Rodriguez a look.<\/p>\n
During a recent conference call with media, Jeremiah said he was \u201calmost nervous\u201d to watch Rodriguez\u2019s film because he had learned so much about him as a person and appreciated his back story so much.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then when you watch the tape, you\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, no, he passes the threshold,\u2019 \u201d Jeremiah said. \u201cHe can run. He\u2019s got the ability to cover. He\u2019s a firm tackler. Obviously, the forced fumbles are outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chuck Bednarik Award is annually given to the best defensive player in college football. The past two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-588975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}