Tony White’s Replacement

We had this article written and done before Chip Kelly left his head coaching job at UCLA to be the offensive coordinator at Ohio State. It has caused all sorts of craziness in Husker land with everyone telling you why we need to be worried about White leaving. Let’s set aside what I know, and just try to talk a bit of common sense here. Let’s just get right into it…

First and foremost, Tony White applied and interviewed for the San Diego State head coaching job where he was probably one of their top 5 candidates, but still wasn’t selected. As a Husker fan, are you really going to sit there and worry that San Diego State didn’t think he was good enough, ready yet, or whatever else, but Power 5 UCLA is going to pick him? Just say that out loud. 

Secondly, think about who has been mentioned and rumored to take this job, PJ Fleck, David Shaw, Brandon Staley, Ken Niumatalolo, Rick Neuheisel, so many head coaches in line to at least throw their name in the hat. While Fleck has bowed out already, the Bruins aren’t going to strike out on everyone. Further, if they are looking for a DC to take the job why wouldn’t they just go grab D’Anton Lynn who was UCLA’s DC in 2023 and took them from 87th in the country to 11th defensively. He left to be USC’s DC, and is still in town, he’s probably getting the nod over White in this situation.

But the situation gets weirder, the recruiting class Kelly brought in was awful and would be starting as head coach in mid-February which isn’t optimal while trying to get the team into a new conference. When you think about “good situations” that White would leave for, I don’t think that’s it. Now don’t get me wrong, White is taking this job everyday of the week if it’s offered to him, but he’s still not in their top 5 IMO. 

Lastly, for those of you who like to read into social media happenings for what’s going to transpire… the UCLA athletic director said they wanted to have a replacement in 96 hours for the team. That means the Bruins will be announcing a HC by today or tomorrow, DC White has been retweeting and liking Nebraska football things on Twitter as recently as yesterday. 

It’s just not happening folks, take a deep breath.

But the reality is that Tony White interviewed for at least 2 head coaching positions that I know of in December, and Matt Rhule is almost certainly thinking of what his plan will be for when White leaves Lincoln whether that is after 2024 or beyond. There has been a ton of speculation as to who would be the backfill for DC White when he inevitably leaves. How far are we from me being concerned about the 3-3-5 that White would employ for Nebraska within the B1G, to now being concerned he may leave us because he did so well in year 1. 

I wanted to dive into what Rhule has done in the past. The problem is, there has only been one time in college where Matt Rhule lost a coordinator while he was at a job, and that was after the 2015 season at Temple when his offensive coordinator Marcus Satterfield left to become the head coach at Tennessee Tech. Temple went 10-4 that year, won their eastern division of the American Athletic Conference, but lost to Houston in the conference title game. 

But it’s almost as if Rhule knew Satterfield would be heading out for a head coaching position, as he brought in Glenn Thomas from the Atlanta Falcons to be his QB coach. While it wasn’t public knowledge, Rhule is so calculated that I believe he told Thomas he was the OC in waiting, and as soon as Satterfield left for Tennessee Tech, they elevated Thomas to OC at Temple. Not a bad backfill to grab someone that was helping prepare Matt Ryan for his NFL seasons.

I like this move for a multitude of reasons. First, it’s someone that you have already worked with for a year and you know what he is capable of. On the flip side of that, it also lets you know if there’s something that just doesn’t mesh with what you are trying to build within your team. Grabbing outside hires can always be a bit dangerous, you go on recommendations and what you know about what you’ve seen, but you never really know. Think of all the recommendations Rhule got to bring in Jeff Sims as the QB1 in Lincoln. Second, it keeps some continuity with your team. Bringing in someone from the outside doesn’t always work so well, and Nebraska has seen it fall on its face with hires like Bob Diaco and Matt Lubick. Knowing what you are getting with someone and how they will mesh with your current team is huge. 

PJ Walker was the main QB at Temple while Rhule was there, and had an outstanding freshman campaign where he threw for over 2,000 yards and 20 TDs to only 8 INTs under Marcus Satterfield. However, he took a step back in 2014 where he threw more INTs (15) than TDs (13) and that prompted a move at the QB coach position on top of him looking at head coaching positions. Again, some tangible results go a long way bringing confidence to Rhule for elevating someone, and in 2015 Walker had an unbelievable year in his first year being coached buy Thomas where he threw for nearly 3,000 yards, 19 TDs and 8 INTs.

When you think of who it could be that is on staff, Rob Dvoracek who is the LBs coach at Nebraska makes a lot of sense and seems to be the one everybody points to as the successor. He got a ton out of our ILBs in year 1, and he is highly thought of in the coaching circle. But one thing that Dvoracek does not have compared to when they elevated Thomas at Temple, is experience. Thomas had already been an OC, had coached Matt Ryan at the most important position in football. Dvoracek has only been an FBS on field coach for one year (last year with Nebraska). He did have 2 years with Lehigh which is FCS, but that’s a big jump to all of a sudden be a coordinator. That would be where my concern would be for elevating Dvoracek, elevating a guy to defensive coordinator that only has 2 on-field years of coaching experience at the D1 level. If you look at Tony White, he was a recruiting coordinator for 7 years at San Diego State, defensive pass game coordinator for 2 years, and defensive coordinator for 4 years between Arizona State and Syracuse. That resume is heavily stacked compared to Dvoracek. The sentiment will inevitably be that he eventually is going to be a DC so we don’t want to lose him. But the counter to that is he will absolutely have growing pains with that little of experience, can Rhule afford those growing pains in what would be year 2 of Raiola if he gets the DC job after this year? I don’t know.

We have an analyst that could be an option, Kevin McGarry has been with Tony White as an on the field coach and as mostly an analyst during Tony White’s defensive coordinator run. McGarry was defensive coordinator at San Diego State for 15 years before being elevated to head coach from 1996-2003. He is someone that Rhule could know what he is getting elevating him, but is he comfortable in the analyst role and would he show loyalty following White if he left? 

I think McGarry is a little far-fetched and Dvoracek is the most likely option. Cooper in my opinion is too valuable as a recruiter and film-evaluator to pull him from that and shouldn’t be elevated, but that’s just my opinion. Knighton is basically the exact same in terms of experience as Dvoracek, and I believe they would lean towards the latter if they had to choose between those two. Other than that, you really don’t have an option for defensive coordinator on staff.

That’s why I think it’s either Dvoracek (which I would be very nervous about) or an outside hire. Phil Snow was Rhule’s defensive coordinator at Temple, Baylor, and Carolina. This could be a good option when thinking about who Rhule may be familiar and comfortable with. He is currently serving as an analyst in the NFL, so he would be available immediately if we needed him.

Other guys that Rhule has employed is someone like Mike Siravo, who followed him to Carolina from Baylor and was run game coordinator, and is currently the ILBs coach for the Vikings (Minnesota not Dana). He helped him resurrect Temple as well. There have to be some more.

To sum everything up, the more UCLA strikes out on candidates the more worried i’ll get, but White probably isn’t in top 5 for them at this point in time. Something would have to change drastically for it to be DC White to UCLA. I think Rhule knows he needs to have someone in place for after this season and that person is already here. If I had to take a guess it would be Dvoracek as of now, but don’t count out Coach Snow if he’s not completely confident there.