Tony White shares comfort level with Nebraska's defense

Nebraska Cornhuskers defensive coordinator Tony White is fine-tuning the Cornhuskers defense at fall camp. While other programs across the country are implementing new and unique defensive schemes and lineups, White is taking a different approach. Recently, the Nebraska defensive coordinator shared his thoughts on the defense’s comfort level and revealed what he’s doing to heighten it before their season opener against Minnesota at the end of August.

“I believe that we are still growing. We’re going to take this last time remaining and make sure that we know what we’re doing,” said White. “Again, it goes back to being able to self-scout and then say what you’re doing wrong. And seeing if it’s a big piece that we’re going to do and we need to correct or is it something expensive, we’re gonna throw it out. So that’s where we’re getting to.”

“We got plenty of film of what we’re running. Now we’re going back through and seeing what can we do really fast and really physical, what can we add, what can we take out, so that way the guys can just go out there and play right now.”

There are less than three weeks until Nebraska’s August 31 Thursday night showdown with their Big Ten nemesis. That gives White and the defense time to narrow down and focus on what they do well, which will improve their comfort and confidence on that side of the ball. And that should go a long way for the Cornhuskers defense putting together a solid performance in their season opener, getting things off on the right foot in head coach Matt Rhule‘s first season leading the program.

But when they do get going, the Nebraska defense plans to get creative during the 2023 season behind White. Nebraska finished the 2022 season ranked 76th in scoring defense (27.6 points per game allowed) and 99th in total defense (414.4 yards per game). That won’t cut it.

So whatever White’s got cooking needs to pan out.

“Well first I think the biggest thing is putting the guys in position to be successful,” explained White. “You know, every play on defense is designed to do something, you know what I mean? So you’re saying to yourself, they’re in two categories. You’re trying to stop what the offense is doing to you, so you’re calling defense that way, or there’s a certain emphasis, where you go back through the week like yesterday, we got a chance to self-scout, and then you’re going back through and saying, ‘What do we do wrong, what do we need to work on so then now in practice you’re making an emphasis to just call that, regardless of situation.’ You’re saying, ‘I want to work on this. Let’s get the organics of this.’

“So those are the two things that go on in our head. One, is making sure that they get used to seeing the pictures, but two, making sure that we’re working on things that we’re not necessarily good at right now, so that way we can fix them.”