It’s not just because the Ohio State Buckeyes are immediately in front of his guys after, in old children’s book speak, a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Tony White said as a competitor coming back into the ring, no matter who you are playing you have to take it back down to zero and then rev it back up.
It just happens you’re playing a team as talented as anyone in the country this Saturday.
“But same thing like last week, if you don’t know what to do and how to do things, then it doesn’t matter who you play. You’re not going to play well,” said the Husker defensive coordinator on Tuesday. “So we just got to make sure, again, it always comes back to us. Being at zero and building ourselves back up to that point where you’re on the edge and you can just go play.”
“Whether you are good or bad, the answers are on the tape,” White said. “You look at the tape and you see, ‘Was it execution? Was it the manner in which we do things?’ Schematically wise, there’s some things I would definitely not do again. So it’s all encompassing. You look at it. You (have to) be very forthright with the guys, and you move on.”
White said there were schematically some things “that were completely stupid” and there are always calls you want back.
“But at the end of the day you need to make sure that you instill that confidence and having the guys running around with their hair on fire and I didn’t do a good enough job with that this week.”
You don’t get too high when you do well. And then when things are off track, “You’re able to focus in on the things that make you good and then really bounce back from those things. That will be the mark of a good team is how well you bounce back, how well you’re able to turn the page whether it’s a good or bad performance.”
“You can give up and give a speech or you can get up in front of people and give a speech and be dynamic. There’s different ways of doing things. So I don’t think you can take the emotion out of it. But at the end of the day I have to make sure that those guys are ready and charged up to take the field. Not only to do their job, because these guys do everything you ask them to do. These dudes, man, they’ll run through a wall.
“That’s why it really bugs me because it’s me. You just got to keep on finding different ways to make sure they’re playing with their hair on fire.”
“Not based off of today. You sit back and listen to Coach (Rhule) and you hear the message. That’s what I do. I sit down and I listen to Coach like I’m a player. That’s one of the truly great things about him. Hey, there’s a lot of ways you can go but at the end of the day you have another high-powered offense, one of the best teams in the entire country. And this is like life. We’re teaching life lessons. You’re not always going to get the job you want. You’re not always going to write the article you want to get. That’s not always going to happen. But it’s how you respond from it and learn from it.”
He said defenders went out there “and practiced their ass off” during Tuesday’s practice. “If you went out there you would have been like, ‘Holy cow.’ Again, these guys, they do what they ask you them to do. I have to direct the ship right way.”
Rhule said on Monday safety DeShon Singleton was in protocol for a head injury. Tommi Hill played against Indiana but is coming back from a plantar fascia injury.
“All the flexibility you have, or maybe you don’t have, so you’re looking at combinations of guys going in there. Great chance for the young guys to step up. Braylen Prude. Rio (Mario Buford). You got Larry Tarver. You’ve got guys, Rex Guthrie, who have been just steadily getting better and better… So now opportunity presents itself to rise up and see if they want to take it, so we’ll see.”
White said “100 percent” on that of the cornerback who was atop the depth chart at the end of spring before an injury.
“He was out there running around, looking good. There’s healthy and then there’s, like, you have your wits about you, your game speed. This whole time he’s been getting his strength back and stuff. But most importantly he’s been getting his game speed back.”
White said it’s a variety of things at play for those guys to succeed too.
“It’s calls. Don’t put them out there so much in 50-50. It’s working the technique. It’s trusting the guys to go do it. It’s showing them in individuals. And then the technical side of it is in the very beginning your eyes, your stance, are you on the right leverage, are you doing those things right? So you’re breaking it down to every little aspect to help them feel confident next time they go out there.”
“A combination of maybe not working it as much in practice, a combination of being schematically in too many one-on-one tackles,” he said of the struggles against Indiana. “If I miss a tackle and I’m the only guy there then those guys hit for bigger gains. But if there’s two or three people around there, then chances are those are minimized. So it goes back to me, schematically wise making sure that where the ball is going that there’s multiple guys to tackle the ball.
“It’s easy to point out one guy when he misses a tackle. But it’s hard when there’s three or four guy. One guy misses and the ball doesn’t get out like that. Got to put more guys around the ball.”
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