John Bullock shares biggest takeaway of Nebraska's special teams

While Scott Frost was the head coach at Nebraska, special teams were a consistent cause of concern and debate. That era is over now and with that, there should be changes to the special teams. With that, linebacker John Bullock shared his thoughts on Nebraska’s special teams.

One major difference in the Nebraska special teams unit is the new special teams coordinator, Ed Foley. However, as Bullock explained, this is a difference but it also doesn’t entirely reshape the unit.

“I’d say he definitely knows what he’s talking about and it’s been fun learning from him and hearing his perspective into things,” John Bullock said.

“So, yeah, it’s not much different than what we did, but there’s always stuff to take away from it and, yeah. We’re just playing hard and we’ll be fine.”

Ed Foley was a longtime assistant coach at Temple, eventually working under Matt Rhule. In 2019, Foley joined Rhule at Baylor, before following him to the NFL and Nebraska. He held the role of special teams coordinator for several seasons while he was at Temple.

John Bullock is entering his fifth season in the Nebraska program after redshirting in 2019. Since then, he’s played strictly on special teams. So, he does have first hand experience with how the Nebraska special teams unit operates.

“It for sure is,” Bullock said of staying in his special teams role. “I want to be able to get out on the field in any possible way that I can. So, yeah, however I can get on the field and contribute to the team. It’s just my job.”

John Bullock on switching positions

John Bullock came to Nebraska as a walk-on. However, the Cornhuskers struggled to find a unit for him to work with, seeing him go from linebacker to defensive back. Now, he’s excited to be returning to linebacker in Nebraska’s new 3-3-5 defense.

“I like it a lot. I’m able to fly around a lot more, just make a play,” Bullock said. “It’s not a gap defense so just see ball hit, ball. I feel like flying to the ball, getting to the ball, being fast, playing fast is my biggest thing so I like that a lot.”

Things are clearly going well for John Bullock. Even defensive coordinator Tony White has noticed Bullock standing out during practice.

“Another surprise is John Bullock, I think moving him down was a really good move,” White said. “First day in pads and I don’t know how many times I said John out there, he was lighting things up, moving around. So those are what I say would be the first two guys. We’ve moved some other guys around at all three levels, so I got to go back and watch, but those are two guys you say somebody moved positions, who are the first two? Those two guys.”