The statement is striking and encouraging, minus all the necessary ingredients to feel gratification heading into the start of pre-season camp.

A year or two from now, the statement likely will have more meaning…and impact.

But in the short term – minus the leadership and sheer football ability of Te'von Coney and Drue Tranquill – Clark Lea’s comments about his 2019 linebacker corps are positive…with an asterisk attached.

“It’s as talented, athletic, long a group as I’ve coached,” said Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator of his linebacker corps with just one player – Asmar Bilal – with noteworthy experience.

“When you think about the squad in 2017 and the movement and the speed and the range compared to now, I think it’s night and day. I think we’ve really come a long way.”

Two seasons ago, Notre Dame’s top four linebackers were Coney, Tranquill, Nyles Morgan and Greer Martini, who ended up losing playing time to an on-the-rise Coney. Tranquill was at Rover. Morgan was the Mike.

Obviously, it was a quality unit of hard-nosed football players. But in terms of side-to-side speed and the ability to cover the width of the field, it didn’t have the pure athletic skills of current players such as Rover Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, Bilal at Mike, red-shirt freshman Buck linebacker Jack Lamb, sophomore Rover-turned-Mike linebacker Shayne Simon, and former safety-turned-Buck Jordan Genmark Heath, a junior.

“Owusu was recruited to play Rover,” Lea said. “He’s the first true Rover that we’ve had. He really embodies what that position is meant to be. His length, his athleticism, his ability to cover…even more than Tranquill.

“Tranquill was a Buck linebacker playing Rover. Asmar was a Mike linebacker playing Rover. Wu is a Rover. He’s 217 pounds now and I’m really excited about him. He had a really nice spring.”

A year ago, Lamb – one of the most pleasant surprises of the spring – was rehabilitating a torn pectoral muscle. This past spring, he won at least a portion of the Buck linebacker job on passing downs, and could ultimately take the leading role altogether over Genmark Heath.

“We were in a situation last year where these guys were so young and not nearly as physically developed,” said Lea, who benefitted greatly in his first year as defensive coordinator from the decisions by Tranquill to return for a fifth year, and Tillery and Coney to come back for their fourth.

“Jack Lamb is a 235-pound linebacker right now. A year ago, he tore his pec and was not able to practice. As an early-enrollee freshman, he kind of got swallowed up in the spring.

“Bo Bauer and his movement…Shayne Simon in his transition to a new position…Shayne has an awareness of the things he needs to do to be an impact player for us. He can do it. He’s just got to train himself for it.”

Lea knows he has to have patience with this group as the 2019 season unfolds.

“I know that we have the ability to play effectively at the second level,” Lea said. “What I don’t have is game experience and what I don’t have formulated in concrete is who are the guys we’re going to be able to rely on for 70 percent of the snaps.

“I’ve got to determine who the players are that are going to be the ones that take the lion’s share of the work, and I don’t know who that is yet. That has to separate and it hasn’t separated yet.”

It sure would help if one of the players separating himself is Bilal, who quietly finished sixth on the team in tackles last year with 50 stops but just three tackles for loss.

“We’re better if he is -- from a height, weight, speed, power (standpoint) – a lead guy for us,” Lea said. “Him playing at a really high level certainly would be helpful to us. But he’s still going to be playing a new position.”

Lea will be counting on some intangible factors to take the linebacker corps to the next level.

“Every single guy that’s battling for a starting job or is battling for a role will be an evolved version of himself by the time we’re into the season,” said Lea, whose three-position group includes red-shirt junior Jonathan Jones, red-shirt sophomore Drew White, sophomore Paul Moala, and freshmen Jack Kiser, Osita Ekwonu, J.D. Bertrand and Marist Liufau. “These guys will all improve. I don’t look at the group and think, ‘We’re going to really have to get creative.’

“In my mind, we have a talented group of guys that I get really excited about. I also think they’re wired in a really unique way. The unit is very strong to me from a fabric standpoint. The spring was frustrating at times for me because you want things to develop quicker. But there are some really talented pieces there.”

Pieces that Lea will have to interlock with one another on the fly.