Erik Chinander is careful to not make too many judgments on players from last season’s Nebraska defense.
Consider that Chinander, the Huskers’ new defensive coordinator, has watched film of only two games from last season. Nebraska’s game against Wisconsin was one. He’s not even certain of the other.
Chinander only watched that much because he wanted a general idea of the personnel returning.
That’s all.
He wasn’t about to condemn a player or make rash judgments based on those games.
“There are things on tape I see and think, ‘Why would that kid do that?’ but I don’t know what he was coached to do,” Chinander said, “so it’s not fair for me to get a bad taste in my mouth about that kid from the film.”
Chinander knew of other ways to find out what went wrong, and why, last season, as a new Nebraska coaching staff dives into spring football. Players and coaches reconvene Tuesday morning after a week-long spring break.
“The only thing I asked them – I don’t want to hear names – just tell me what you think went wrong,” Chinander said. “What do we have in our locker room? Is the defense fractured? Are we whole? Where are our problems?”
Chinander credited players for answering those questions bluntly and truthfully. Accountability, he said, was a major emphasis for improvement. Players want to hold each other accountable, and for coaches to hold them accountable, too.
No sliding by. No cutting corners.
“Everybody wants to be a players’ coach. Well, you can be a players’ coach and hold people accountable,” Chinander said. “They want it. They need it. This group, they realized they got away with something before, but it wasn’t right. So they want it.”
Senior nose tackle Mick Stoltenberg said he’s seen a “big change” with player accountability throughout offseason lifting and conditioning.
What happened last season, obviously, isn’t acceptable – a 4-8 record in which the defense allowed at least 54 points in four of the Huskers’ final six games – and Stoltenberg said players had choice but to change.
What better time for a clean slate than with a new coaching staff.
“The buy-in has been pretty great,” Stoltenberg said. “It needs to be, in order for us to get this thing rolling. I think guys are realizing how hard we do have to work. It is great we have new coaches and all that stuff is changing, but at the end of the day, we still have to work really hard to be successful.”
Chinander singled out Stoltenberg and sophomore lineman Ben Stille for taking charge in leadership roles. Some other players, young and old, are beginning to come out of their shells, too, he said.
“The buy-in has been great from kids,” Chinander said. “They’re hungry for change. They want things back to what they should be at Nebraska. I think right now we’re in a good place.”
Nebraska’s new staff will implement a 3-4 defense, although that doesn’t mean it’s the exact same 3-4 look that former defensive coordinator Bob Diaco brought in last season in his only season with the Huskers.
“It’s a very aggressive style,” Chinander said of his system. “There’s a way to play 3-4 defense where you can two-gap everybody, two-gap some people, two-gap others. We’re more on the side of one-gap 3-4 with occasional two gaps.”
The success of Chinander’s defense depends on those same factors that spells success for any defense. He wants to stop the run, sack the quarterback, create turnovers and limit explosive plays.
In two seasons at Central Florida, Chinander’s defenses forced 58 turnovers, and the Knights ranked second nationally both seasons in takeaways.
“We talked about it early. We’ve always said we need to get Coach Frost the ball back,” Chinander said. “His guys are really good on offense, but what are we going to do to get him the ball back? You’ve got to meet about it, you’ve got to talk about it, you have to practice it, you have to create drills that turn the ball over. It’s got to be one of those things you focus on.”
In Chinander’s first season at UCF, the Knights ranked ninth nationally in tackles for loss and 17th in sacks. He’s aggressive, at times, in bringing up a fourth for fifth rusher, and said he plays up on receivers in coverage.
Finding an explosive pass rusher off the edge is on the to-do list for the spring, and into fall camp.
“Either we’re going to have to find the personnel to get to the quarterback, or I’m going to have to find a way to manufacture that,” Chinander said. “That’s my job. We’re going to get it done. I don’t know if we’re going to have to line up in crazy blitz packages, but we’ll get there.”
Linebacker Mohamed Barry, for one, likes the talk of an aggressive, ball-hawking defense that creates turnovers.
“What I hope to get out of this spring is to develop my game and be extremely aggressive – getting to the ball, knowing my assignment to the point to when I see it, I go full speed without thinking,” Barry said. “I want a lot of tackles and a lot of explosive plays. I want to be a player that changes the game for my team and helps us get to the Big Ten Championship game.
“But collectively, a defense that has aggressive turnovers during games. (A defense) that is just hungry, tenacious. All that. I want that type of defense, and I think we can be that if we put our minds to it. It’s the approach to the work that is going to get us there.”
With Frost running an up-tempo offense, Chinander is used to preparing his defense to defend more possessions in a game. But in order to successfully to do that here, coaches must develop “some serious depth,” he said.
“In a perfect world we’d have 22 starters, because the style Scott wants to play at – which I’m all in for – you’ve got to understand when you’re in the NFL or you’re playing a power running team in college football, you’re talking about 12 to 15 possessions,” Chinander said. “We’re rolling at 17 to 20. We’re rolling at close to 100 plays a game. We need to develop some depth if we’re going to play like that.”
“There are times I’d like to slow it down a little bit, but this is his show and he’s been pretty successful, so I’m not going to jump in there too much.”
Courtesy: Brian Rosenthal, NU Media Relations