Colorado changed the shape of its defense this offseason, and it did it where the cracks had shown up most plainly. The Buffaloes added transfers Liona Lefau, Tyler Martinez and Gideon Lampron at linebacker, brought in Carson Crawford and Rodney Colton Jr. on the recruiting trail, and then moved Chris Marve from linebackers coach to defensive coordinator.
The timing matters because the new setup is about to be tested against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, where Colorado’s linebackers will be asked to do the job Marve was hired to prioritize: fill gaps and stop the run. That is a different kind of ask from the one Robert Livingston built around last season, when the defense leaned on the secondary more than the middle of the field.
The investment in the position is not subtle. Lefau, Martinez and Lampron have combined for 245 tackles over the last two seasons, not counting FCS-level production, and that gives Colorado a group with real proof on the board. If one of those three has separated himself by pure volume, it is not hard to see why the staff is leaning on the unit: there are only so many tackles to go around, and 245 across three players suggests Colorado did not just add bodies, it added production.
Sanders has already put his stamp on that evaluation. In May, he said on Thee Morning Run that the linebacker core is superb, that Colorado has “three pros” at the position and that these are the best linebackers he has had in his coaching career. That kind of praise is not empty rhetoric when it comes attached to a defense that has been retooled around the middle of the field.
The friction is in what Colorado gave up to get here. Livingston’s approach helped the Buffaloes find recent success in the secondary, but that came with run defense issues that could not be ignored. Marve’s 4-3 scheme changes the center of gravity. It asks the linebackers to hold their ground, sort out the run fits and make the play before it spills past them. That is why this group, more than the new names in the back end, now sits at the center of the defense.
Colorado does not need the linebackers to be perfect to make the move work against Georgia Tech. It needs them to be sturdy, and to be what Marve’s system demands from the start. If Lefau, Martinez and Lampron can turn last season’s tackle totals into consistency inside a 4-3 front, Colorado’s defense will look a lot more like the one Marve wants than the one Livingston left behind.
