Tony White shares importance of having other Syracuse coaches with him at Nebraska

Nebraska defensive coordinator Tony White may be in a new location this season, but he’ll still have plenty of familiar faces around him. White joined Matt Rhule‘s staff this offseason after three seasons at Syracuse, and he wasn’t the only member of the Orange to make his way to Lincoln.

Nebraska also brought on Kevin McGarry as a senior defensive analyst as well as Jack Potenza and Josh Bringuel as defensive quality control coaches. All three bring at least two years of experience working with White at Syracuse. He believes that will help with the transition of moving to a new school.

“Always easier,” White said during Nebraska’s first week of spring practice. The great thing about it is, it is truly like a mesh of ideas. They call it one thing, we call it one thing. We bring it together (and) this is how we are gonna call it here. It’s been really neat meshing everything together, getting the guys in the spots and letting them go.”

McGarry was a defensive analyst under White for the Orange from 2020-22 and also worked with him for nine seasons at San Diego State. Bringuel played for the Aztecs from 2016-19, and White was SDSU’s cornerbacks coach for his first two seasons. Both Bringuel and Potenza were graduate assistants on Syracuse’s staff last season.

The Orange ranked 40th in the FBS in 2022 in scoring defense (23.1 points allowed per game) and 21st in total defense (328.6 yards allowed per game). As Tony White prepares to overhaul the Nebraska defense, he’ll hope to combine his 3-3-5 system at Syracuse with ideas from the rest of the coaches on the staff.

“I like to say it’s organic,” he said. “Even from my first year at Syracuse to the last year, we were constantly changing things. Calling things different. Trying to cut out extra vocab. My biggest deal is making sure those young men, when they run out there, they are not thinking. We always hit the self review and make sure we’re not trying to tell ’em too much between and trying to control them like robots. It’s always changing.”

The Cornhuskers certainly have room to improve after finishing with their sixth straight losing record last season. The defense was a big reason why, as it ranked 77th in points allowed per game (27.6) and 100th in total defense.

White and his staff will have the rest of spring practice to work on those adjustments before the spring game on April 22.