Nebraska restructures contract with defensive coordinator Tony White

The Nebraska Cornhuskers have announced a restructured contract for defensive coordinator Tony White.

“After guiding Nebraska football to its best defensive performance in the Big Ten era, Husker associate head coach/defensive coordinator Tony White has signed a restructured contract,” Nebraska announced via press release on Friday. “White has been a nominee for the Broyles Award in both 2022 and 2023, an honor given to the nation’s top assistant coach. 

“Under the terms of the restructured contract, White’s annual salary has been increased to $1.6 million per year for each of the two remaining seasons on his contract.”

It’s a huge boon for Nebraska, as White’s defense was their strongest unit in 2023. Now, Matt Rhule and company will look to continue building their foundation for success.

“Tony White has all the attributes you look for in a coordinator or assistant coach,” Rhule said. “He builds great relationships with his players and fellow coaches and is an elite teacher and communicator.

“We made great strides on defense this past season, and I look forward to continuing to work with Tony as we move forward and build this program.”

Additionally, White added some thoughts on how excited he is to continue coaching the defense in Lincoln.

“I am proud of what our players accomplished this year and am excited to build on that success moving forward,” White said. “It is a privilege to have the opportunity to coach at Nebraska, and to work for a great leader in Coach Rhule, and I feel honored to work alongside our defensive staff every day.  Go Big Red!” 

Moreover, White’s success provides some hope for the program Rhule is building. As he looks ahead to the future, Rhule provided some thoughts on how he’ll be looking to improve in certain areas during a press conference earlier this week.

“I try to go back and look at the season, obviously, the football. Right now, a lot of it is the roster. There’s not a ton of time, really; you don’t get too much time right now if you want to do a great job with the roster with the current players. But when the emotions are gone, and all that’s done, I try to make sure I go back and look at everything and just sort of say, ‘Hey, what did we do well? What did we not do well? But more importantly, why?

“Why did we do these things well? Why did we not do these things well? When you have an ending the way we had, you have a tendency to dwell on the negative things. Keith handed me a document of all the positive things that we had done… just to see all the growth. And then, you can then begin to attack the other areas we have to grow in to make the jump that we wanna make.”

Alas, Nebraska is better for having Tony White for another season, at the least. The Cornhuskers will be looking to make a nice jump in Year 2 of their new era.