Tommy Tuberville: Karlos Dansby ‘as good a LB as I’ve coached’

Karlos Dansby is “about as good a linebacker as any I’ve coached,” Texas Tech coach Tommy Tuberville said Saturday. And Tuberville, who was head coach at Auburn during Dansby’s time there from 2000-03, has coached some good ones – particularly during his time as an assistant at the University of Miami from 1986-93. Tuberville ticked off the names of some of the top Hurricanes’ linebackers during that era — Ray Lewis, Micheal Barrow, Darren Smith and Jessie Armstead — and then zeroed in on Lewis, to whom he compared Dansby time and again. “He’s a lot like Ray in that he’s got a lot of instinct and tremendous hand/eye coordination,” he said. “He made a play for us in a bowl game that turned out to be ESPN’s Play of the Year where he intercepted a pass while going out of bounds and threw it back in (to a teammate) before he hit the ground. He’s just got all kinds of athletic ability.” Dansby, 28, became the newest Dolphin Friday when he agreed to terms on a five-year deal worth $43 million that will make him the NFL’s highest-paid inside linebacker. Tuberville said that like Lewis, Dansby struggled to keep his weight up while playing at Auburn, where he played at about 215. “I knew when his metabolism slowed down he’d fill out and be fine.” Dansby, who stands 6-foot-4, now plays at 250. He said it was a similar situation with Ray Lewis. “Ray was a safety and a quarterback when we recruited him out of Lakeland Kathleen.” Dansby was a wide receiver in high school. Tuberville said he first scouted Dansby at a basketball game in

his hometown of Birmingham, Ala. “He was a very good basketball player,” he said. “He was just one of those guys – and this goes back to a lot of kids I coached – if he wanted to do it, he could get it done. He always had the athletic ability; you talk about explosion, he could jump out of sight. But the thing that sets him apart, like Ray, is his instincts. You’d put them out there and you didn’t have to coach them a whole lot, because their instincts were right so much of the time.” Spoke with Reggie Torbor, a teammate of Dansby’s at Auburn, earlier in the day and one thing he mentioned was that Dansby was the type of guy who could go 15-20 plays without making a big impact and then do something spectacular. Tuberville agreed with that assessment. “The thing about Karlos is he’s very deceptive,” he said. “It doesn’t seem like he’s even around the ball and then, boom, all of a sudden he’s there.” Tuberville said the Dolphins could play either inside or outside at linebacker and even line him up elsewhere. “At 250 he can play inside, outside, defensive end,” he said. “If I was coaching him I’d have him line up all over the place.” A third member of that Auburn team now with the Dolphins was Ronnie Brown, who shared backfield duties with Cadillac Williams, Rudy Johnson and Brandon Jacobs. “I’ve got a bunch of guys down there in Miami now,” Tuberville said. “Maybe they owe me a check.”

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Tommy Tuberville: Karlos Dansby ‘as good a LB as I’ve coached’

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