Kolarevic’s position switch shakes up picture for both Husker nickels and ILBs | Football

Chris Kolarevic was on the precipice of moving to the nickel spot in Northern Iowa’s defense before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the school’s 2020 season.

Two years later, the Nebraska defender is getting a second chance at the position.

Kolarevic, who last winter tested as one of NU’s most athletic defenders, this spring is getting the chance to audition as JoJo Domann’s replacement in Erik Chinander’s defense.

“I think I have the athletic ability to do it,” said Kolarevic, who spent 2021 playing inside linebacker. “It’s a fun position. You get to fly around and play in space a lot. It was a conversation after the season ended, just trying to maximize my ability on the field and that’s what I’m trying to do.”

The interesting thing about the move is that it essentially shakes up two position groups.

At nickel, the 6-foot-1, 230-pound Kolarevic is the most veteran player in a set of players that also includes sophomores Isaac Gifford — he started last year against Iowa after Domann’s season was cut short due to wrist surgery — and Javin Wright, who missed almost the entire season due to a blood clot issue.

“He’s done a good job out there,” Chinander said of Kolarevic last week. “It’s been really nice to see him being out there in space and being fluid. We’ll get a little bit more man coverage in as we keep moving through the installs and we’ll see how he does in man coverage, but everything else he’s done really well so far.”

There’s a lot to figure out, though the Traverse City, Michigan, native got a full year of the defense under his belt in 2021, so his learning curve is more about the nuances of playing in much more space than he was asked to before.

“It’s just a different amount of space out there, whereas ‘Will’ is a lot of similar responsibilities in terms of pass drops, but it’s just that that’s into the boundary and the nickel is to the field, so there’s just a lot more space out there,” Kolarevic said. “So it’s just feeling out that space. I can cover it, it’s just feeling out that amount of space to the field compared to the boundary.”

Kolarevic was the No. 3 inside linebacker behind starters Luke Reimer and Nick Henrich, but played about 175 snaps, per Pro Football Focus numbers, compared with 750-plus for the two top guys.

“One thing I probably didn’t do a good enough job of last year was making sure and making the rotation happen,” inside linebackers coach Barrett Ruud said at the outset of spring ball. “We had so many close games and so many critical moments, that I probably got too tight at times sticking with the same two guys. Those guys got tired down the stretch and I’ve got to do a better job of, non-negotiable, making sure I play enough other guys to take hits off the two guys playing the majority of the game.”

The question, though, is who will round out that rotation with Kolarevic now playing nickel.

The potential answer is complicated this spring by the fact that both Reimer and Garrett Snodgrass — maybe the leader in the clubhouse for the No. 3 job — are limited or out this spring due to injuries.

Snodgrass (6-3, 235), a York native, is entering his fourth year in the program and is seen as a reliable contender for rotational work. Without him this spring, both Eteva Mauga-Clements and walk-on Grant Tagge have received reps with the upper units on the defense. NU also has a young group of scholarship players that includes Randolph Kpai, Mikai Gbayor, Seth Malcom and freshman midyear enrollee Ernest Hausmann.

Many and perhaps all of that group will be counted on to contribute on special teams this fall and perhaps one or more prove they’re ready for some level of role on defense, too. The staff is very high on Hausmann and the work he’s done in his first months on campus, though it’s too early to say whether he could be the rare true freshman who contributes from the linebacker level in the Big Ten.

It’s also possible that coming out of spring ball, NU will look to add depth or veteran presence at the position from the transfer portal.