One of the ring-leaders of the Rapid City Stevens defensive unit that I am looking forward to his junior season is 2028 linebacker Bridger Mez Bridger Mez 5'11" | 215 lbs | LB Rapid City Stevens | 2028 State SD . Bridger grew significantly in his sophomore season with his short-area vision as a run-stopper as he also improved with quicker pursuit angles down to the ball carrier. Another skillset that I will be watching for this fall from Bridger, is how far he’s grown with his pass-coverage as he already shows as one of the best linebackers I have seen from West River in that skillset regardless of class, but I’ll be intrigued by how big that step forward is this fall.

The best 2028 prospect out of Rapid City in 11AAA quickly appears to be Rapid City Stevens linebacker Bridger Mez Bridger Mez 5'11" | 215 lbs | LB Rapid City Stevens | 2028 State SD . He’s efficent with penetrating downhill slowing down the run game as Bridger does solid work feeding into the inside gaps. He’s one that you can tell is a high motor linebacker that has great vision as it’s rare to see Bridger have to shed much off his blocks to get to the point of attack. He’s also one of the better 2028 linebackers in the Dakotas when it comes to pass coverage as he shows good ball-tracking ability and a physical presence when it comes to 1v1s scenarios. Bridger also shows off sideline to sideline capability which I like to see out of this incoming junior who is right now our LB1 in the SD 2028 class.

Time to meet our first LB1 in this brand new 2028 South Dakota class in 6’0 180 pounder Bridger Mez Bridger Mez 5'11" | 215 lbs | LB Rapid City Stevens | 2028 State SD , also out of Rapid City Stevens. Note to evaluators, don’t blink late at night watching this kid’s first clip as Bridger wastes no time getting downhill to the ball carrier, and quite frankly it continues the more you watch his tape. He shows off great pursuit angles as a linebacker that you can tell carries great fluidity in his athletic movement even as just just an incoming sophomore for the Raiders. High motored middle linebacker that is not afraid to run down a ball carrier downfield and is one that I would expect will be tackling monster in the coming years for Stevens.