Tuesday was talking day for three new Nebraska football assistants Matt Rhule hired this offseason.

The trio included special teams coordinator Mike Ekeler, defensive line coach Terry Bradden and defensive backs coach Addison Williams. Ekeler was the first coach to talk, and talk he did, with passion and a pocketful of one-liners that will coax a smile on any Husker fan’s face.

“Like I told these guys from day one, I said, fellas, right now I'm coming in new, you guys all have a clean slate, a new beginning,” Ekeler said. “But I promise you this, the standard here is to be the best, and that's what the standard is. So we gotta giddy up and go, or we're going to find people to bring in that are going to get hit that standard. And that's just RLS, real-life shizay.”

Ekeler was always going to be tough to follow, but somehow, some way, Bradden brought his own energy in his own way, and he wasn’t too far off from matching the juice Ekeler brought.

Bradden should be excited, too. The young coach is getting an opportunity to lead his own position for the first time in college.

For the past eight seasons, Bradden has been coaching and learning in the modern-day NFL dynasty of the Kansas City Chiefs. After being a defensive assistant in 2017, he was moved to a defensive quality control role, which he kept from 2018-20. A promotion was in order, and he spent the past four seasons as the assistant D-line coach.

Bradden didn’t have any personal connections to Nebraska or its football program when he was interviewing for the job. But Kansas City sure did in Dave Merritt, the Chiefs’ defensive backs coach whose son, Dawson, is a four-star linebacker in the Huskers’ 2025 class.

On top of the Dave Merritt-Nebraska connection, Rhule has major respect for Joe Cullen, who happens to be Kansas City’s defensive line coach, a role he’s held since 2022.

Cullen met Rhule long ago when Rhule and Phil Snow hit up a Rod Marinelli-coached Detroit Lions practice. Cullen was Marinelli’s D-line coach at the time. A strong connection was built.

"Joe Cullen is one of the best coaches in football," Rhule said. Nebraska's head coach later called Bradden a home run hire.

What drew Bradden to Nebraska was the fit and Rhule, who Chiefs’ head coach Andy Reid is a big fan of, Bradden said. And the fact Rhule was willing to wait until Kansas City’s season was over following the Super Bowl meant something, too.

When the clock hit 12:01 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 10, Bradden’s contract kicked in and he replaced his Chiefs hat with his Husker hat.

“During the interview, he (Rhule) was willing to wait. Coach Reid was a big fan of him, and they knew each other very well, and that was a big thing for me and my family,” Bradden said. “My family is the number one part of my life and my components. So for him to wait, for my family, my kids and everything after the Super Bowl run, I was blessed for the opportunity. So I felt like it was a right fit for me at the time.”

Effort and energy were the biggest lessons Bradden learned from Cullen, who preached those two pillars of his coaching hierarchy every day.

But at Nebraska, Bradden will use the knowledge he gained from all the Chiefs coaches he’s developed under, like DC Steve Spagnuolo, former DC Bob Sutton and linebackers coach Brendan Daly.

That tree of coaches helped Bradden create his own core values he lives and breathes by. To Bradden, a key component to winning is strong relationships between players and coaches. When he was at the Pro Bowl eight years ago, Bradden got to hang out with Reid and Emmitt Thomas, a Chiefs’ Hall of Famer.

Their message? Football is about people. You can draw up a mean cover-two defense and all sorts of fancy stunts on the whiteboard, but until you understand the people surrounding you, success will be hard to come by.

“They’re gonna know that I'm part of family — coach Rhule is big on family. I had my son and my wife here last week, and that was real big for me. So the room will know that I'm big on family and relationships,” Bradden said. “Second component — relationships are very important. I got to get to know everybody in this room. I have to know, when you come into my room, are you in a good mood, bad mood? Are you ready to go? And I have to, as a coach, my number one job is to get the best out of you for that number one activity and task we have at hand.

"...So then after that, it's work ethic. I'm gonna establish these core principles as part of work ethic and everything that coach Rhule and his principles going forward with the program.”

Bradden was a high school football head coach by the age of 24, leading his alma mater, Inlet Grove in Riviera Beach, Florida. He calls coaching his “ministry” and developing young football players his passion.

But before he settled on a coaching career, Bradden wanted to try his hand at being a US Marshall. The Tuskegee University graduate even had an internship in Montgomery, Ala., but learned through that process football was his calling, his purpose, his destiny.

“I said, what can I do every morning that I love, wake up and change a young man's life? And that was football,” Bradden said. “I get to coach a game that I played all my life, and also get to inspire and change a young man on the field and off the field.”

So Bradden grinded. He attended the American Football Coaches Association convention his senior year at Tuskegee. He felt validated when he became the head coach at Riviera Beach. Then he kept climbing the career ladder, landing a graduate assistant job at Bethune-Cookman.

It became clear early on in Bradden's press conference that the coach really cares about fundamentals. It starts and ends with them.

So when Chris Jones, the Chiefs’ All-Pro defensive lineman, called Bradden and asked him what the difference is between coaching NFL guys and college players in the Big Ten, Bradden knew what to say.

“The biggest difference is, at this level, I'm able to develop more,” Bradden said. “And I'm talking about a stance when I first got here. Get off the ball, hand placement,” Bradden said. “When you get a guy that's been in the league for eight, six years, they already have those components in their play.”

True development is what Bradden says he’s all about. He could talk for hours about stances, get-offs, hand placement, striking blockers. They are all areas crucial for players, whether it's peewee ball or the NFL.

And it’s those fundamentals Bradden has been watching during player workouts. Those have helped him learn more about what’s he’ll be working with in his room.

“This part, to me, is like OTAs (organized team activities) almost. It's very important to see the fundamentals from the ground up,” Bradden said. “You build a defensive lineman from the ground up, from a stance, get off. There’s a difference from first- and second-down get-off, then third-down get-off. So it's very important that I'll keep preaching fundamentals. We can't get bored with fundamentals.”

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