CFB Zeitgeist Score
48
Mid-pack in the position cohort. Carried by sacks at the 63rd percentile.
Cameron Whitfield
Below the discourse floor — the honest stats-only state.
30 TACKLES · 1 SACKS
2026 Outlook
Returning to Louisiana for 2026
2026 Depth chart
Projected starter
Linebacker · Louisiana
Returning around him
2026 Award watch
No preseason watch lists yet (most drop June 15 – July 15)
Louisiana · Last season: 6-7 · Talent rank #91 · 2026 recruiting class #81
LB · LOUISIANA · SUN BELT
CFB Zeitgeist Score
48
Mid-pack in the position cohort. Carried by sacks at the 63rd percentile.
Heisman Heat
#9209
<1% win probability
Fan Belief
Awaiting
Player-specific FI not yet ingested. Falls back to team mood below.
Respect Gap
Awaiting
Coming online with player-level FI.
Reality Gap
Awaiting
Coming online with player-level FI.
ACCOLADE PROBABILITY
Heisman
<1%
TOP LB AWARD
Butkus
—
CONSENSUS
All-American
—
Player Standing · 17 rungs
Tier 1 · 2-deepRotational. Earning real snaps in the rotation.
Career arc · Season-by-season Standing
5 seasons on the ladder
2021
Louisiana · LB
—
2022
Louisiana · LB
—
2023
Louisiana · LB
—
2024
Louisiana · LB
—
2025
Louisiana · LB
R09 · All-Conference HM / 2nd team
Recognized
Career Arc
The durable bio layer: position, size, hometown, and roster role.
How big the prospect was before college, and whether the later career arc beat that expectation.
| Class | Profile | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 3-star | 0.8111 | No. 2236 recruit | HighSchool | Louisiana |
Portal movement changes role, context, and perception. This keeps that path in one place.
| Season | Move | Context |
|---|---|---|
| No transfer portal moves on file for this player. | ||
Where the player landed at the end of the listed season — final nowcast rank, win/finalist/ballot probabilities, and the cleanest official Heisman placement on file.
HIGH CONFIDENCE· through week 16Heisman Futures
Not yet listed on major futures markets.
Selector Grid · 2025
NIL · Recruiting · NFL Draft
Market value, pedigree & pro outcome
Recruit stars
★★★☆☆
to Louisiana
Composite
0.8111
#2236 national
Today’s Hot-Take
The Hot-Take engine fires when this player’s percentile profile crosses a defensible threshold (top 10% in a cohort, 100+ snap sample). When it’s quiet, the model is honoring its “must be defensible” rule.
Anti-Take
PENDINGThe contrarian read fires when the rules-engine detects a stat that complicates the Hot-Take. Quiet here means the model hasn’t found a defensible counter yet — not that one doesn’t exist.
Fan sentiment · Awaiting signal
The Room reads fan conversation around a player — who’s talking, what they believe, and how that shifts. It publishes once weekly volume rebuilds; for most players that’s in-season, when game-week chatter spikes.
Cohort divergence reads how different fanbases talk about this player. Returns once weekly mentions clear the publish floor.
Rival Radar
No rival-bucket mentions in the current season.
Signature Story
He hasn't written his page yet — we'll start filling it in when there are enough snaps to rank against his peers.
Signature Moment
No signature moment on the ledger yet.
Returns once this player puts together a multi-game body of work — single-game flashes alone don't clear the bar.
Season Pace · Projection
Where the defensive totals stand
To hit 80-tackle season (currently 30): needs 25/game over remaining 2.
To hit 100-tackle season (currently 30): needs 35/game over remaining 2.
To hit 6-sack season (currently 1): needs 2.5/game over remaining 2.
To hit 10-sack season (currently 1): needs 4.5/game over remaining 2.
The fast read on the thing that makes this player more than a generic stat line.
Cameron Whitfield is trying to climb the steepest award hill in college football: a defensive candidacy. The hook is the disruption profile on Louisiana's defense, with 1.0 sacks, 1.5 tackles for loss, and 1 interceptions through the current loaded season. For a defender, the question is never just production; it is whether elite disruption and team context can become nationally undeniable.
Traditional stats first. Advanced context underneath.
Last season
2025 season snapshot | final
30-second read
Defensive contributor against FBS defenders.
2025 season snapshot | final
Tackling & Disruption
Coverage & Takeaways
Game Log · Week-by-week
2025 season · 11 games
| Wk | Opp | TKL | SOLO | TFL | SACK | INT | PD | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wk 1 | L 12-14vs Rice | 5 | 3 | 0.5 | 0.0 | — | 0 | Season-high 5 tackles |
| Wk 3 | L 10-52@ Missouri | 1 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1 | 0 | |
| Wk 4 | L 31-34@ Eastern Michigan | 4 | 2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 5 | W 54-51vs Marshall | 4 | 4 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 7 | L 14-24@ James Madison | 2 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 8 | L 10-22vs Southern Miss | 3 | 2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 9 | L 23-35@ Troy | 1 | 1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 11 | W 42-39vs Texas State | 1 | 1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 13 | W 34-30@ Arkansas State | 2 | 0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Wk 14 | W 30-27vs UL Monroe | 4 | 3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | — | 0 | |
| Bowl | L 13-20@ Delaware | 3 | 3 | 1.0 | 1.0 | — | 0 | |
| Total | 30 | 19 | 1.5 | 1.0 | 1 | 0 |
Traditional history
Season rows up top, career context at the bottom.
Season context · Team result + system
Advanced metrics second
Usage, value, and opponent-adjusted context.
TFL, sacks, and QB hurries are grouped together because defensive Heisman cases are usually built on visible havoc, not on tackle counts alone.
Pass breakups, interceptions, and forced fumbles matter because national awards voters respond to plays that change possessions and highlight reels.
Every percentile is compared against players at the same position and level, so an FBS quarterback is judged against FBS quarterbacks, not the whole sport.
The top tables stick to the stats fans already know from broadcasts and box scores. Advanced context is pushed underneath instead of replacing the basics.
| Group | Metric | Value | Rank | Pct | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Defense | Total tackles | 30 | #1362/4942 | 72nd pct | Volumevs FBS DEF |
| Defense | TFL | 1.5 | #1771/4972 | 64th pct | Disruptionvs FBS DEF |
| Defense | Sacks | 1.0 | #872/4972 | 82nd pct | Disruptionvs FBS DEF |
| Defense | Interceptions | 1 | #308/869 | 65th pct | Takeawaysvs FBS DEF |
| Defense | QB hurries | 3 | #462/1878 | 75th pct | Disruptionvs FBS DEF |
| Defense | Solo tackles | 19 | #1095/4584 | 76th pct | Volumevs FBS DEF |
| Defense | Fumbles recovered | 2 | #13/736 | 98th pct | Takeawaysvs FBS DEF |
| Defense | INT return avg | 1.0 | #543/578 | 6th pct | Takeawaysvs FBS DEF |
| Defense | INT return yards | 1 | #546/578 | 6th pct | Takeawaysvs FBS DEF |
| Ball Security | Fumbles lost | 0 | #1/773 | 100th pct | Turnoversvs FBS DEF |
Universal 17-step ladder. Tier pills below; accolade streams nested.
ALL-CONF HM
ALL-CONF HM · Rung 9 of 16
Why he’s here
All-Conference honorable mention / 2nd team — the recognition has started.
What moves him up
A best-at-position run lifts to 1st team.
What moves him down
A back-end conference finish drops out of the honor list.
Accolade streams
The Butkus award tracker integrates per-week probability once a dedicated scraper for this award lands. Confirmed past winners and finalists for this player will surface here.
Splits · Per-game
2025 season · 11 games
Home vs Road
| TKL/g | TFL/g | SACK/g | PD/g | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Home5g | 3.4 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Road6g | 2.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.0 |
Win vs Loss
| TKL/g | TFL/g | SACK/g | PD/g | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wins4g | 2.8 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Losses7g | 2.7 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.0 |
First half vs Second half
| TKL/g | TFL/g | SACK/g | PD/g | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weeks 1-76g | 3.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.0 |
| Weeks 8+5g | 2.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Pocket and defense-quality (clean vs. pressure) splits are coming soon.
Savant · Box-rate percentiles
Where this profile ranks vs the LB cohort
Elite: qb hurries (81st). Concern: passes defended (17th).
Percentiles versus same-position peers with enough snaps this season, based on box-score rates.
Advanced Savant · LB · 2024
Advanced opponent-adjusted percentile bars are coming soon for this player.
Opponent-adjusted advanced metrics with a cohort filter.
Peer Comparator · Fingerprint match
Three closest profiles by box-rate percentile
Closest peers by overall box-score percentile profile at the same position.
Player DNA
Solid in every phase without a signature dimension.
His 2025 production profile sits closest to Leon Lowery’s 2024 season.
Leon Lowery
Mohamed Kaba
Terry Kirksey Jr.
Keenan Pili
Jimmy Phillips
Matches Leon on
Not enough data yet for this comparison.
As a senior, his production profile tracks closest to Grayson Metz's senior season at Northwestern (2024).
Grayson Metz
Isaiah Bagnah
Taiwan Berryhill
Jestin Jacobs
Stephen Herron Jr.
Matches Grayson on
Supporting Cast · Scheme
Staff and system around the player
Head Coach
Michael Desormeaux
Pass share
40.1%
341 pass / 509 run
Plays / game
65.4
13 games
OL sack rate (allowed)
7.8%
257 dropbacks · PBP
Scheme: Run-leaning.
Coaching Lineage · 2021–2025
2 coachesCoaching transition mid-career: Billy Napier → Michael Desormeaux. Worth noting in scheme + development context.
Off-field context — switch tabs to drill into recruit profile, transfer arc, or roster timeline.
No fields populated yet.
No fields populated yet.
Trophy Case · Confirmed honors
What the selectors said
ALL-CONFERENCE
All-Conf mention (2025)
All-Sun Belt
Every honor on the ledger, broken out by stream and selector.
Conference-level recognition helps anchor whether a player is merely statistically loud or actually viewed as elite within his competitive lane.
Season-end distinction and week-by-week recognition on one timeline.
| Season | Honor | Scope | Team / Selector | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | All-Sun Belt | all_conference | Louisiana | Sun Belt | LB |
Modeled rank and official finish by season.
| Season | Team | Role | Latest Model | Forecast | Win | Finalist | Official Finish | Points | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Louisiana | LB4 | #9209 | #9845 | 0.0% | 0.0% | -- | -- | W16 snapshot | Sun Belt |
| 2023 | Louisiana | LB4 | #9690 | #10334 | 0.0% | 0.0% | -- | -- | W19 snapshot | Sun Belt |
| 2022 | Louisiana | LB4 | #12416 | #12212 | 0.0% | 0.0% | -- | -- | W20 snapshot | Sun Belt |
| 2021 | Louisiana | LB4 | #10824 | #10508 | 0.0% | 0.0% | -- | -- | W20 snapshot | Sun Belt |
Team, conference, and class by season.
| Season | Team | Conference | Pos | Class | Bio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Louisiana | Sun Belt | LB | 4 | No. 9 | 6-3 | 241 lb | Houston, TX |
| 2024 | Louisiana | Sun Belt | LB | 4 | No. 9 | 6-3 | 241 lb | Houston, TX |
| 2023 | Louisiana | Sun Belt | LB | 4 | No. 9 | 6-3 | 241 lb | Houston, TX |
| 2022 | Louisiana | Sun Belt | LB | 4 | No. 9 | 6-3 | 241 lb | Houston, TX |
| 2021 | Louisiana | Sun Belt | LB | 4 | No. 9 | 6-3 | 241 lb | Houston, TX |