I hear ya. Losing LB's is hard to overcome. I have also noticed that almost all teams have a drop from #1 to #2 in that position. You might get lucky and have one #2 thats as good, but it falls pretty sharp after that. With almost all teams.
Well, and I'm not even 100% confident in our starting three. LaVonte David is a no-brainer. Put the guy on the field and watch him go.
Will Compton seemed to get better as the season progressed last year, as he recovered from his early leg injury. By the end of last season I'd say he was performing as well or better than he did in 2009.
Sean Fisher is a mystery, due to losing the entire season to a broken leg. I'm not a fan of rumors but there's one going around about him that wouldn't be good if true (work ethic), but bottom line is, he's more potential than anything right now.
After these guys we have Alonzo Whaley, who was adequate early on last year before David took full control of the position.
For the last couple of years we've been running that Peso hybrid stuff a lot, so we haven't really had three LBs on the field most of the time. If we had to go to that this year for the bulk of the season, I'd say our starting three would be David, Compton and Fisher, with Whaley backing them up, and after that it's a crapshoot. We have some "names" as true Freshman (David Santos & Max Pirman), but of course they're wholly untested at this level.
We'll see how our LB corps holds up as the season progresses.