OSU's Collin Oliver (30) sacks Baylor's Blake Shapen (12) and forces him to fumble out of bounds in the Big 12 title game. SARAH PHIPPS/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK

Packers Draft Pick Collin Oliver’s Coach: ‘The Kid Can Do Everything’

Originally posted on Green Bay Packers on SI
By Bill Huber | Last updated May 5, 2025 8:24 AM ET

In 2023, Bryan Nardo was hired as Oklahoma State’s defensive coordinator. In short order, he built a defense good enough to lead the Cowboys to the Big 12 Championship Game.

The key to it all was Collin Oliver, the Green Bay Packers’ fifth-round draft pick.

“When I got hired, we wanted to be multiple,” Nardo told Packers On SI this week. “We were different than most 3-4s. It’s more of a 3-2 and he’s the weak-side inside linebacker that easily transitions to the line of scrimmage as that fourth D-lineman. The question was will he be able to transition and play back? How will he do playing off the line of scrimmage? Because that was going to make or break what we could do.”

Oliver made it. After recording 16.5 sacks and 23 tackles for losses as a pass rusher in 2021 and 2022, Oliver thrived in his new role as a combination linebacker and edge rusher. He piled up six sacks, 15.5 tackles for losses, four forced fumbles, five passes defensed and 73 tackles.

It didn’t take long for Nardo to learn what Oliver could do.

“The first week of spring ball, I remember watching him line up over a guard, play it from 4 yards, 5 yards, see a puller, track it over the top. And I’m like, ‘Do you have any idea what you just did?’” said Nardo, now the safeties coach at Charlotte.

“He just did it so naturally, like you didn’t have to tell him. So, it was like, OK, he’s a really good inside linebacker, we know he’s a good edge, and it was how many different ways can we maximize Collin Oliver’s talent? We want him to rush the passer, we call this, we go to a four-down front. We want him to go to the field and mesh charge the quarterback, we make this call, go to this front. We want to blitz him through the B gap, we line him up here, make this call.

“It allowed us to stay so simple in the back end and just always activate him, or we activated the other kid who just went to the 49ers, Nick Martin. Collin’s versatility allowed us to go from a 3-3-5, a 3-2, a 4-2-5 or a 4-1 whenever we wanted to without subbing because of Collin Oliver.”

Oliver has obvious talent. At 240 pounds, he ran his 40 in 4.56 seconds with a 39-inch vertical leap at the Scouting Combine. He’s also diligent and studious off the field. Combined, Oliver was all-Big 12 on the field and in the classroom.

“Not only smart, because he is, but he’s so dedicated,” Nardo said. “It was, ‘Hey, Coach, I’m going to come up and can I watch some extra film?’ In the summer, him and Nick Martin, you’re talking every day in the summer, ‘Can we get an extra 30 minutes? Can we get an extra hour?’ Before special teams meetings, 30 minutes with those guys. Every time they could come to my office or ask me to meet them in the linebacker room, they were so dedicated to learning and wanting to learn. It was so much fun.”

Oliver’s ability to thrive both on and off the ball isn’t unique – Micah Parsons became a star at Penn State playing in both roles – but it is rare.

“That’s two totally different worlds and that’s what was so impressive about him,” Nardo said. “You have those guys that can play linebacker but they can’t rush the passer. It’s so incredibly difficult to be great at both.

“When the Packers or other teams during the draft process reached out to me and asked which games they need to watch, I’d tell them to watch what he did to Arizona State in 2023. He was playing inside linebacker, they ran a jet sweep into the boundary and Collin played his A-gap, tempoed the ball, worked over the top, inside out and forced a fumble. And then three plays later, he’s on the line of scrimmage, mesh charging the quarterback, getting a sack. Like, holy cow! It was like, the kid can do everything and that was only his second game in our system.”

In 2024, with Nardo looking to create more pressure on the quarterback, Oliver was back to his role as an edge defender. However, in the second quarter of the second game of the season, Oliver suffered a broken foot and missed the rest of the season.

Without him, the Cowboys lost their final nine games of the season and allowed at least 38 points in each of their final eight games.

Oklahoma State won both games with Oliver in the lineup. In 46 pass-rushing snaps, Oliver had a staggering 14 pressures. Penn State’s Abdul Carter, the third pick of the draft by the Giants, had 13 pressures in 77 pass-rushing snaps in his first four games.

“When he realized that was going to be where the majority of his time was spent, he studied with coach Paul Randolph all spring, all summer,” Nardo said. “He studied which pass-rush moves worked and he would look at it and say if the offensive tackle is a lower-hand guy, I’m going to use this, if he’s a high hand guy, I’m going to use this, if he’s a leaner, he’s going to do this. They identified every week what move he would use versus what kind of a player.

“All of a sudden, he went from a really good pass rusher to, ‘Holy cow.’ It wasn’t a reaction. It was a plan.”

Throughout the draft, Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst said the plan was to add players who love football.

That’s Oliver, which is why he’s going to be a success in the NFL, Nardo said.

“I think it goes back to the same thing of why was he so good with us,” Nardo said. “Why was he so good in our first year there? And it was, he’s driven, he loves football, he doesn’t want to do anything but football. Yeah, those kids go to college, but why else are you in Stillwater, Okla.? His answer is, ‘I’m here to play football.’ He loves the game. He wants to be great at it. He’s got that drive to just be different.”

This article first appeared on Green Bay Packers on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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