Anytime you land a 5-star prospect, it’s easy to get excited about the future of a position. A 5-star player is usually one of the top players in the country at their position.

But for Georgia, landing a player such as 5-star linebacker Zayden Walker is quickly becoming the standard at the position.

Inside linebackers coach and defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann has signed wave after wave of 5-star prospects. That’s not being hyperbolic at this point. In 2021, he landed Smael Mondon and Xavian Sorey. The 2023 class brought in Raylen Wilson. Last year he signed Justin Williams and Chris Cole.

Nakobe Dean was also a 5-star prospect in the 2019 recruiting cycle, while Quay Walker and Jalon Walker were both top 50 recruits who narrowly missed being 5-star prospects.

Some of those listed above are already off to the NFL. Zayden Walker still has another season of high school football to play.

But a large chunk of those names — Mondon, Jalon Walker, Wilson, Williams and Cole — will make up Georgia’s inside linebacker room this season.

Mondon is the veteran in the room, as he’ll enter his third season as a starter for the Bulldogs. He’s hoping to have a healthier and better 2024, as he was hobbled by a foot injury.

He knows the young linebackers coming up are more than capable of playing for Georgia. It’s part of the reason Georgia is able to weather the loss of Jamon Dumas-Johnson, a multi-year starter who transferred to Kentucky.

“I feel like I say the same thing every year with every freshman that comes in,” Mondon said this spring. “It’s just like, athletes. You see them, and that’s kind of the first thing that really jumps off to me personally, just, like, how athletic they are. But I feel like they’re athletic, smart, hard-working. I feel like Coach Schumann like, has a mold of the type of guy he brings in here or the types of guys he brings in, so I feel like they fit right into that.”

Jalon Walker is certainly one of Georgia’s better players. But there’s so much competition at linebacker, it can be hard sometimes for him to see the field at inside linebacker. Sophomore CJ Allen, the No. 72 overall recruit in the 2023 recruiting class, is likely to start and see more snaps at inside linebacker over Georgia’s most productive pass rusher.

Still, Walker knows what he signed up for in coming to Georgia. All of Schumann’s pupils seem to get that point.

“Finding that role for me, getting in the groove of things, having the balance of playing outside and inside at the same time,” Walker said. “It’s just something I’ve been working on all spring, especially pushing the inside backer role as well. Just growing off that tremendously and keying in on all my skills, learning the ins and outs of the defense as well.”

Because of the depth ahead of them, Williams and Cole aren’t expected to play a big role for Georgia this year. Of course, a season ago Allen and Wilson weren’t either. Yet there they were, playing big snaps against Alabama and starting against Florida State in the Orange Bowl.

Those late-season reps had Smart believing they’d be farther along in their development. This spring served as a reminder that they have only played one season of college football.

“I really thought Raylen and CJ would be further along because of how much they played,” Smart said. “I don’t think you give them enough credit for: they really shouldn’t have been out there last year and they had to go play. They didn’t play bad, but they didn’t play great. Well, I expected this spring to be this huge jump. They’re still freshmen.”

Having to find playing time for all these linebackers is a great problem for Schumann to have. Sure there will be transfers, with Dumas-Johnson and Sorey both doing so this offseason.

But Schumann has also shown the value of patience at Georgia. Tae Crowder, Monty Rice and Channing Tindall all serve as examples of players who saw the field at Georgia at inside linebacker before being taken in the NFL draft.

Zayden Walker will be expected to follow in their footsteps. When the time comes, he’ll compete alongside Wilson, Allen, Williams and Cole for playing time.

Georgia will be better for it. Which is saying something as it may already have the best inside linebacker room in the country.

What Georgia is getting in 5-star linebacker Zayden Walker