Pitt’s linebacker room entered camp with a simple mission: make sure last year’s thin margin never happens again.
The Panthers have spent the past two seasons getting elite play at the position, with Rasheem Biles and Kyle Louis earning all-conference honors last year and Braylan Lovelace piling up big numbers as well. But the depth behind that top group was shaky, and when injuries hit early in 2025 and Biles and Louis later missed time in the middle of the season, Pitt was scrambling. Walk-ons and freshmen were forced into bigger roles, and at one point even a safety had to slide over to linebacker for a game just to help fill the spot.
That experience shaped the thinking heading into 2026. Pitt wanted a room built to absorb losses, not collapse under them. So the Panthers opened fall camp with 14 linebackers - 12 on scholarship and two walk-ons - and the competition for six depth chart spots has been intense.
There is still no final answer on the pecking order, but the group has started to separate late in camp. Right now, Pitt is looking at a possible starting trio of Braylan Lovelace, Jeremiah Marcelin and Alex Sanford, with DeMarco Ward, Davin Brewton and Cameron Lindsey pressing hard behind them.
That kind of crowding can make life difficult for the coaching staff, but the players see the upside. For them, the numbers are the point.
"On this team, this year, I feel like this linebacker room really wants to get better," DeMarco Ward told reporters last week. "Everybody wants to play, everybody's hungry.
There's competition every day, and that makes you want to be better yourself, because you don't want to get complacent. You don't want to have somebody jump you in the depth chart."
Ward, a Memphis transfer, said he knew almost immediately what kind of room he had joined when he arrived in January. From Lovelace, the only returning starter, down through the freshmen and walk-ons, the message was the same: everybody wanted a shot.
"They all want get better and they all just want to be able to get on the field," Ward said of his position room. "I think, honestly, we could travel the whole linebacker room on special teams if we could. I think that's how competitive this room is."
That edge has been built on continuity as much as competition. Joe Bowen took over as linebackers coach for Ryan Manalac and, by design, hasn’t tried to overhaul what already worked. Pitt has had a strong run at linebacker in recent years, from Sir'Vocea Dennis to Biles and Louis, and now Lovelace is expected to carry that standard forward.
Bowen’s offseason message - "If it isn't broken, try to make it better" - has stuck with the players, and it has helped the group keep moving instead of starting over.
The nickname that Louis introduced two years ago, "The Sharks," is still in use too, another sign that the room is trying to preserve its identity even as the faces change. Pitt’s defensive backs have long had their own internal tradition, and the linebackers are aiming to build something just as recognizable.
"My standard ever since coming here was to be great," Davin Brewton said of Pitt keeping the same goals among the linebackers. "So those dudes (Biles and Louis), just seeing them be great, they held the standard real high, but that's always been a standard here at Pitt."
Brewton and Ward may not be locked into 12-game starting jobs, but both are expected to see meaningful snaps early and often. And with this much competition in one room, the depth chart can still change fast once the season starts.
For now, though, the linebackers say the battle is pushing everybody in the right direction. The tension is real on the field, but it hasn’t turned sour off it.
"It's actually funny," Brewton said of the camaraderie at the position. "Because we're a very close linebacker group.
We don't really look at it as competition for real. We just there to make each other better every single day.
So whenever our number is called, we just go out there and just do our thing."
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