Steven M. Sipple: As spring practice progresses, Chinander works to pull all the right levers | Column

Nebraska defensive coordinator Erik Chinander seemed to give the question more than passing thought. 

Did he get all he could from his group last season? 

“I think that’s an interesting question,” the fifth-year Husker coach recently told the Journal Star. “I think you very rarely get all you can. I don’t think I’ll ever go through a year and think, ‘Well, boys, we got all we could out of them.'”

But that’s ultimately the challenge of every coach, right? It’s about maximizing potential. One of my lasting takeaways from Nebraska’s 3-9 season in 2021 is that Husker head coach Scott Frost failed to maximize that particular team’s potential. NU certainly was talented enough to play in a bowl game, even if it was a lower-tier bowl game, but fell well short. 

Along those lines, Frost has said Nebraska’s defense played well enough in almost every game last season to put the team in position to win. It’s hard to argue otherwise. But when the Huskers resume spring practice Tuesday after the school’s spring break, Chinander again will set about the task of squeezing as much as he can out of his defense. He needs to squeeze more. He’ll approach that objective by thinking on a macro level as well as a micro level. 

Macro level: “It’s about first thinking you can be good on defense, then believing you can be good on defense, and then knowing you can be good on defense,” Chinander said. “I think we’re somewhere in between believing and knowing right now.”

Last season, then-sixth ranked Ohio State defeated Nebraska 26-17, and No. 9 Michigan prevailed 32-29. No. 20 Michigan State needed overtime to win 23-20, and No. 3 Oklahoma gutted out a 23-16 triumph.  

“After being in real games like those and playing well on defense, I think our guys believe they’re a good defense,” Chinander said. “Now, do they know it? Do they walk out there and think, ‘We’re going to stop somebody. We’re going to shut these guys down if we do what we’re supposed to do.’ 

“I think we’re in the middle of all that right now.” 

On a micro level, Chinander benefits from continuity among the assistants on his side of the ball. Yes, that’s important. It’ll always be important in a sport as complex and detail-oriented as football. As Nebraska’s offense undergoes a major overhaul this spring, the Husker defense returns four full-time assistants. Which essentially means Chinander can focus on tightening screws and making small adjustments that can end up making a huge difference come autumn, he said.

Continuity on a staff often leads to better time efficiency. It means Chinander having to have fewer conversations with his assistants about what needs to get done on a given day. 

“Early in our tenure here, we had to work some late nights because we didn’t all know exactly what we were looking for and how we were going to piece it together,” he said. “Now we more easily move through the information and start the game plan. It allows us all to watch more film on our own. It allows our younger coaches to start drawing up cards and getting the things that we’ve prepped for practice done earlier.

“Think about it this way: Somebody on our staff is an expert in every area of the game, and it allows those guys to continue to keep searching for that one tendency, that one thing that may help you win a close game.”

In 2013, as an assistant defensive line coach with the Philadelphia Eagles, Chinander learned something critical about the sport he loves — something that speaks to the importance of being detail-oriented.

“There’s basically two plays a game where a defender knows exactly what’s going to happen,” he said. “When those two plays happen, that’s a player’s chance to make a big play.” 

That play could push the team over the top. That’s essentially what Frost is trying to do with his program. The overarching objective: Go from coming close in games to winning them. 

As for Chinander, what he’s saying makes sense and sounds promising. But in the back of many Nebraska fans’ minds is Wisconsin running back Braelon Allen rushing for 228 yards (10.4 per carry) in the Huskers’ second-to-last game of 2021. Or it’s Iowa running back Tyler Goodson reeling off a 55-yard run in the fourth quarter to set up the Hawkeyes’ game-winning touchdown. 

Bottom line, if Chinander is going to squeeze all he can out of his 2022 defense — that is, push it to the proverbial next level — much of it will come down to fortifying the trenches, where the Huskers lost four linemen from last year — Ben Stille, Deontre Thomas, Damion Daniels and Jordon Riley.  

That group of big men wasn’t dominant last year, but it held up well much of the time. 

“There are always unknowns. You’re going to lose guys every year,” Chinander said. “I think it’s probably a bigger deal for the media and fans than it is for us. We know the next guys who are going to be up.” 

He’s talking about unproven players on the college level such as Marquis Black, Ru’Quan Buckley, Nash Hutmacher, Mosai Newsom, Jailen Weaver, Tate Wildeman and walk-on Colton Feist, among others.