Nebraska’s defense got good news on Thursday when Javin Wright confirmed to Inside Nebraska he will return for a seventh season in 2025.
Here are three thoughts on the development.
Nebraska appears set at inside linebacker
Rob Dvoracek’s inside linebacker room is losing three notable players, including one of the best players on the entire roster in 2024, John Bullock, who after six seasons as a Husker will shift his focus to making an NFL roster. Bullock played 604 snaps in 2024 and recorded 70 tackles, 10 tackles for loss, four sacks and five pass breakups. He’ll be missed.
But the room also lost Mikai Gbayor and Stefon Thompson, who both transferred to other programs.
Gbayor enjoyed a second consecutive strong season at Nebraska, finishing with 49 tackles, six TFLs, one sack and three pass breakups. He transferred to Missouri. Thompson, who followed his old defensive coordinator from Syracuse, Tony White, to Florida State, was a rotation piece in 2024 who played 175 snaps in 11 games and had 27 tackles.
So there were holes to fill at inside linebacker this offseason. Nebraska clearly recognized that and did something about it.
We know Vincent Shavers Jr. is returning for his sophomore campaign in 2025. The key there will be trying to avoid the dreaded sophomore slump that two others went through in 2024 in defensive lineman Cam Lenhardt and Jack linebacker Princewill Umanmielen.
But after losing a veteran like Bullock, the Huskers wanted to place another old, been-there-done-that linebacker next to him as a mentor. That player is former Georgia Southern inside linebacker Marques Watson-Trent, a two-time captain for the Eagles and the 2024 Sun Belt Conference Defensive Player of the Year who has racked up 354 tackles the past three seasons.
But Shavers and Watson-Trent were never going to be enough. Quality depth is always needed, and that’s why Wright’s return is so important. With Shavers, Watson-Trent and Wright, that’s a core trio of inside linebackers — two of which Shavers can continue learning from — who the defense can lean on.
Who’s going to round out the rotation behind those three?
That’ll be a competition between returning players like Gage Stenger, Dylan Rogers and Vincent Genatone, as well as new faces like true freshmen Christian Jones and perhaps Pierce Mooberry, who will be recovering from an ACL injury and could factor in to other positions as well. At this point, I’m viewing Dawson Merritt as more of a Jack, or outside linebacker.
McCullough is like a chess piece because DC John Butler will be able to use him in different ways.
At 6-5 and 235 pounds, my personal hope is he’s given freedom to roam the middle of the field as a rover, but I understand he’s probably better suited to spend most of his time closer to the line of scrimmage, though the past two seasons we’ve seen the rover, Isaac Gifford, often walking down to the second level acting as a pseudo inside linebacker.
McCullough can also be an outside linebacker playing in space as an overhang defender, an inside linebacker in the box or an EDGE, either a stand-up or hand-in-the-dirt — rushing the passer in certain situations.
Plenty of time for all this to shake out, of course. And some of the names I just listed may not even be with the program following spring ball, which is looking more and more like NFL mini camp where players are competing to be on the 105-man roster.
Lots of dust yet to be settled.
Nebraska’s defense now has an inside linebacker with above-average coverage skills
No one in Dvoracek’s inside linebackers room — again, we need to wait to see where the coaches play McCullough — physically looks like Wright, who has a first-guy-off-the-bus build at 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds. Seeing him stand next to the 5-11, 225-pound Watson-Trent will certainly be an image that’s picture-worthy during open portions of spring ball practice.
But while Wright’s size is unique to the room, so is his skill set.
Thanks to his background as a defensive back, Wright has kept the coverage skills he had while his body continued to grow throughout the years. With Wright now in the fold for 2025, it’s a good bet he’ll have a role in Nebraska’s third-and-long packages, like he was in 2024, because of his ability as a blitzer, run defender and pass defender.
I always go back to Wright’s interception against Maryland in 2023. You want a lengthy linebacker with coverage skills like Wright to be on the field in situations where you know the offense will pass (former Husker safety Omar Brown is highlighted here, but Wright makes the play):
It’s going to be fun seeing what Wright is able to do with a third year of playing inside linebacker with Dvoracek’s guidance. You have to expect Wright, in his seventh year, will make a jump if he stays healthy, which at this point, is fair to wonder about.
Wright and McCullough can serve as mentors to a couple more young defenders
Like I mentioned before, Wright looks like an athletic freak at 6-5 and 230 pounds. So does McCullough, who’s 6-5 and 235. Both move well for being as big as they are.
Looking elsewhere around the roster, you see a couple young names pop up who remind you of Wright and McCullough size-wise: Braylen Prude and Mooberry, both listed by Nebraska as 6-4 and 200 pounds.
The way I see it, Prude and Mooberry will have a couple strong mentors to watch and learn from in Wright and McCullough. One would think Wright, who’s been through so much on and off the field, could help those two young guys become better football players.
Prude, who began his college career as a safety, played in one game and redshirted in 2024 while Mooberry, a three-star recruit in the 2025 class, will need to recover from his ACL injury first before seeing the practice field.
I view both Prude and Mooberry as hybrid athletes, outside linebackers with length who are big enough to defend the run but also quick enough to hold their own in pass coverage. Both have experience playing safety at the high school level, Prude at Pearland (Texas) Shadow Creek and Mooberry at Omaha (Neb.) Millard North.
Nothing would make me happier as a football fan than to see both of them playing rover, but that’s probably not realistic, so we’ll see where they ultimately land.
You could also throw Jeremiah Jones into this conversation. The three-star recruit in the 2025 class is mighty intriguing considering his size at 6-4 and 215 pounds and the way he moves, but he’s destined to start his college career on the offensive side as a receiver or tight end.
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