When sophomore David Arnold showed up at Camp Kenosha 30 pounds heavier than last year, secondary coach Jerry Brown suggested he start incorporating more salads into his diet.
Instead of following Brown’s instructions, Arnold kept the weight. But he switched positions.
“I went to coach Fitzgerald and asked him what his plans were for me as far as position because of my size and weight,” Arnold said. “He said that it would probably be a good opportunity for me to move to linebacker.”
Arnold, whose father Dave played linebacker at Michigan, is not the only converted safety playing linebacker. Sophomore Ben Johnson also patrolled the secondary in high school before making the transition to the position at Northwestern.
“At first I was in a whole different world,” Johnson said. “I had never played with those 300-pound linemen, I was always out in space. I had to change my whole mentality of how I played the game.”
Whereas Arnold came to NU as a safety, Johnson was being recruited as a linebacker out of high school.
“Most of the time we see safeties and we want to convert them,” linebackers coach Randy Bates said. “Most of the time they’re taller guys or they have thickness, and those guys usually are the guys who grow into being a linebacker.”
Sometimes the move to linebacker is prompted by injuries, as was the case with redshirt freshman Jared Carpenter. Carpenter came to NU as a safety after playing both safety and linebacker in high school, but due to injuries to players in the linebacking core last year, the coaches moved Carpenter to linebacker.
“My main attributes were my quickness and my experience,” said Carpenter, who has since moved back to safety. “I’ve got good lower strength so I’m quicker and I just knew how to play (linebacker) a little bit.”
With the switch comes new schemes and a new playbook, but sometimes experience is the best teacher.
“For me, it’s hard to look at a piece of paper and understand what I’m doing,” Arnold said. “But once you get out there you can put two and two together. For me it’s helpful when I’m actually doing it myself because I learn from experience.”
Johnson started the first five games of the season at outside linebacker before being sidelined with a leg injury. Arnold, on the other hand, vaulted himself from backup safety to starting linebacker in six weeks. Arnold wasn’t completely new to the position, though. He previously served as NU’s nickelback, a third safety who often lines up closer to the line of scrimmage near the linebackers.
“There’s a lot of times that the safeties are in the same position that those linebackers are in,” linebackers coach Randy Bates said. “So there’s a lot of carry-over.”
Arnold attributes his quick transition to his playing time as a nickelback.
The hardest part of the transition for most converted safeties is the physicality of play, Bates said. Instead of breaking up passes, Arnold and Johnson have to break through the line of scrimmage. Instead of covering speedy wide outs, the duo is covering bulky tight ends.
“They’re not used to playing within the tackle box,” Bates said. “So they have to learn how to be more physical and take on 300-pound linemen.”
But in a game that places speed at a premium, the move often pays off.
“They give us speed and quickness,” Bates said. “For the most part the game is so spread the faster you are the better you can get to the ball.”
