Football Video & Report: Dec. 12

Nebraska interim defensive coordinator Phil Snow met with the media following practice on Friday.

Nebraska interim defensive coordinator Phil Snow met with the media following practice on Friday. He discussed the defensive mindset.

“If we can have 11 guys out there who know exactly what they’re doing, we can live with the consequence. That’s what I’m doing right now is making everyone accountable, we’re playing physical, fast, and know exactly what we’re doing. There’s not a new defense.”

Snow also talked about the defense after the last two games of the season.

“Anytime that you see plays that are not very well executed, that is the problem is that people are not in the proper gaps, their eyes aren’t doing what they’re supposed to. Some of the guys at times don’t even know what the call is, believe it or not. We have to play at a level we’re capable of. I’m trying to get 100% out of all of them that way. The non-physical thing, think about how hard you play, that doesn’t take talent. Knowing what you’re doing doesn’t take talent. The physicality of the game, a little bit of that does, but a lot of it is heart and you have to bring it. A lot of the things we’re stressing really aren’t about talent. I think if they can do those three things, they’re going to play better. If they do those three things, they’ll have fun playing together and that’s the fourth part of what we talk about is that you’re accountable to each other on how you play, what we do, how physical we are, knowing and doing your job, all of those things. That’s what we’re really stressing to them right now along with getting better.”

He also spoke on Matt Rhule’s defensive coaching mindset. 

“We have an army. I’ve worked with Coach (Matt) Rhule a long time, so I told him he has to put his hat on backwards and get out here and start coaching the D-line again. Him and (Phil) Simpson have taken the tackles, along with (Ira) Salvage-Lewis, our quality control guy. Now we’ve had some new guys come in, but they can’t do anything yet. Really that’s what we’re doing. We’ve got them split up and really detailing what we’re doing. It’s really fun seeing Coach Rhule coaching again. If I was the defensive coordinator here, he’d be coaching everyday. That’s where I’ve been with him, he coached the individual with the D line and some of the drills. He’s a hell of a D line coach and that’s what he should be doing, but I’m not the D coordinator anymore after this game. We’ll see what he does.”