Trying to solve mystery of Nebraska football special teams coach

Nebraska football is still looking for a special teams coach, or maybe it just hasn’t been announced yet. It feels more like the latter than the former.

If the Huskers were going to hire another college coach for their special teams opening, it would have happened by now. Tennessee’s Mike Ekeler was on everyone’s wishlist but he re-signed with Tennessee.

Mark Scott from Baylor is another who had ties to the Nebraska football staff, working under Dana Holgorsen as the special teams coordinator when he was at Houston.

However, there was never any buzz there either. Truthfully, there hasn’t been buzz about any candidate, and the longer it goes, the more it feels like the new special teams coordinator will come from the NFL.

Nebraska could be targeting an NFL coach for special teams

Nebraska has already tabbed Terry Bradden to be its next defensive line coach, once the season ends with the Chiefs which will be in two weeks after the Super Bowl.

Some candidates on the Kansas City staff would make sense for the job. It’s unlikely that an NFL special teams coordinator would take the same job in college. However, NFL teams have assistant special teams coaches and that could be where the Huskers get their next special teams coach.

And the perfect candidate, with a tie to Matt Rhule — Tyler Brown — is currently working for the Philadelphia Eagles. Brown’s name has been mentioned for the Nebraska football opening but it makes too much sense.

Why Tyler Brown would be the perfect special teams coach for the Huskers

Brown is a “Special teams assistant” for the Eagles and has served in that role for the past two seasons. He joined the team as special teams quality control but received a promotion to his current role.

What’s interesting is that Brown worked for Matt Rhue as a special teams consultant at Temple in 2014-15 before joining Jim Harbaugh’s staff at Michigan where he was a special teams analyst (2016-2018) before being a special teams graduate assistant (2019-2020).

In all, Brown has seven seasons of college experience under his belt, including five in the Big Ten, and four years in the NFL. His dad, Randy, has been a kicking consultant for over 30 years and has been a coach in the NFL and college as well. He currently works for the Ravens.

Brown is an up-and-coming special teams coach who has earned a shot to be a special teams coordinator. That’s the next step in his career. Add that to the fact that he has a tie to Rhule, and there hasn’t been any buzz about the job (because the Eagles season isn’t over) makes me believe it could be him.

This is guesswork on my part. But Brown would be the perfect hire and if he’s not the candidate, he should be.

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