McKewon: Matt Rhule starts strong in rebuilding a faster and better Nebraska defense

Defensive backs coach Evan Cooper has the bleariest eyes of the night owls. He scours tape into the wee, graveyard hours of the night. He’s got more tips for Rhule than a stock analyst. Texts at 3 a.m.

“The absolute best I’ve ever been around,” Rhule said Wednesday. “If we ever offer a guy that no one’s ever heard of it, it’s Evan.”

This includes Ardmore (Okla.) linebacker Eric Fields. Until this week, he was a 6-foot-2, 195-pound zero-star recruit who logged 180 tackles as a senior. He was headed to Arkansas State until Nebraska intervened, invited him to visit, and scooped up a player Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and even Tulsa did not offer a scholarship.

And if you want understand Rhule’s confidence, consider his brief analysis of Fields, right at the end of a 30-minute presser spent talking about almost everything other than the recruits he just signed.

“I don’t want to make promises — everyone here’s going to know who he is,” Rhule said. “Elite player. Excellent talent. Fast, physical.”

Those last two traits define the 15 players — high school, juco and transfers — Nebraska added on the defensive side of the ball. Two, Mason Goldman and Jason Maciejczak, could play offensive line. The rest will help remake NU’s defense if Rhule’s vision works out as planned.

Edge rusher Princewill Umanmielen, who’s known Rhule since the eighth grade, is NU’s best pass rushing prospect in years. In a single year of prep football, defensive tackle Vincent Carroll-Jackson flashed enough to snag double-digit offers. Safety Rahmir Stewart had a national pick of schools, and chose Nebraska. Transfers Chief Borders, Corey Collier and Elijah Jeudy can add depth and playmaking talent at all three levels of NU’s defense.

Rhule didn’t overhaul the operation in one class. But he might do it in two. And if the 2023 and 2024 classes full of raw, athletic defenders, so be it.

Nebraska’s defense didn’t lack smart guys and good people for the last five years. It lacked twitchiness. For every Cam Taylor-Britt, there were guys a step slow with a vertical jump an inch low. It’s not an exaggeration to suggest that three of NU’s six best defenders last season technically joined the team as walk-ons — Luke Reimer, Colton Feist and the blueshirt Isaac Gifford. Outside of Garrett Nelson, Nebraska’s pass rush in 2022 was sometimes more of a pass stroll. NU made Georgia Southern look like LSU 2019 — and that wasn’t all Erik Chinander’s scheme, either.

Nebraska’s new regime doesn’t set out to hire a certain number of players at one spot, because Rhule likes to add good athletes who can project to a position.

“I just try to take the best players,” Rhule said. “Obviously you need a minimum of certain things — I’m not saying that — but I’m not beholden to (a number). I like to think creatively. Evan Cooper makes me think creatively.”

So too, Rhule said, is new defensive coordinator Tony White. Rhule’s not married to running a 3-3-5 defense — that’s White’s specialty — just to run it. NU will fit the scheme to the personnel. But Rhule added this about NU’s defensive recruiting.

“We felt like we needed speed on defense,” Rhule said. “And that’s what we tried to recruit.”

Could it make for a smaller set of Blackshirts? I think that’s possible, and not a bad thing, considering what fans watched when Nebraska lined up against Georgia Southern and Purdue. Aside from its monster nose tackle, Illinois had a smaller defense than many. But the Illini could run.

And for Nebraska to go where Rhule — and fans — want it to go, he has to build an elite defense. Not just good — elite. The kinds he had at Temple and Baylor, that sack the quarterback and create lots of turnovers. The kinds Nebraska had in 2006, 2009 and 2010, when it won division titles. NU was fast and long in those years, full of defenders recruited by the head coach disliked most by Nebraska fans — Bill Callahan — but perhaps appreciated more the further away his tenure becomes.

Rhule is sharp, and mentioned both Tom Osborne and Frank Solich on Wednesday. Those two legends, Rhule said, had the luxury of evaluating the senior tape of a prospect, who often makes his biggest jump right then. Rhule got to watch senior tape in the last month, and clearly made scholarship offers based on that. Fields’ senior film is outstanding, but star ratings — and recruiting classes — are often set in stone by the time you see a prospect’s best work.

Speaking of which ...

“I was talking to Danny Woodhead the other day,” Rhule said of a NFL player who did not land at NU, “And there’s a difference between great recruits and great players. Sometimes they’re the same thing ... but there are a lot of guys who are really good recruits but not really good players. Sometimes recruiting, how you rank, is really a function of what you were in tenth grade. You go to the camps, you’re 6-foot-3, 220, oh my goodness.

“Well, I’m always looking for the kid who’s kind of getting to be a senior and I’m looking for him to take off. It’s hard to do.”

Maybe. But Rhule’s 1-for-1 in executing his plan.