Nebraska Football: Sims got difficult firsthand look at Tony White

Nebraska football quarterback Jeff Sims may be just getting to know certain aspects of the Nebraska football program. However, he does have familiarity with Tony White’s defense, and his memories of the defense were not fond ones.

Sims faced White against Syracuse in 2020. To say it was a rough outing for him would be an understatement. He went 13-of-28 on the afternoon, throwing from 174 passing yards, a touchdown, and four interceptions. He found a little bit of success on the ground, rushing for 41 yards and a touchdown on eight carries. Nevertheless, it was very clear that White’s defense gave him fits.

This is certainly believable, given what we saw during the spring game in April. White’s defense was attacking the Nebraska offensive line all afternoon. Princewill Umanmelien had the lone sack for the Red Team on the day. Despite the lack of sacks, it was very clear during the game that the new -looking Nebraska football defense was going to create chaos.

Whether it was sending defensive ends and linebackers to rush the passer, or just the way they were able to disguise their looks, Nebraska’s defense looked aggressive. The way they were able to disguise coverages during the spring game was impressive.

Sims still had a good day, recording 138 yards on nine-of-13 passing. With that being said, the defense made very clear that they were not going to make things easy for whoever was behind center.

Sims was prepared for Nebraska football spring game

Sims was prepared for White’s defense in the spring game. Some of that stemmed from the game during his time at Georgia Tech in 2020, as transcribed by On3.com’s Grffin McVeigh.

“Yeah, I played against Coach White when I was at Georgia Tech my freshman year,” Sims said. “He was at Syracuse. And I knew all spring it was going to be a battle because his defense is really good. He threw a lot of different looks at us and I feel like that’s only going to make us better as an offense. Because we’ll see a lot of looks that we’ll probably see in the season.”

The defense created chaos during the spring game, in what could be a preview of the regular season. It has the potential to be effective. The different disguises in coverages and rushes make it a quarterback’s nightmare.  This is exactly the type of defense that you want in order to win games.

Above all, it appears difficult for the offense to game-plan against. Just ask Sims.

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