Huskers overhaul special teams approach
Nebraska's special teams needed a new look after what was a dreadful 2019 campaign.
Head coach Scott Frost decided to put a new face in charge of the overhaul by hiring Jonathan Rutledge as his senior special teams analyst. Rutledge heads to Lincoln from Auburn where he held a similar position for the last two seasons and while he will be the architect behind NU's special teams schemes, all of the full-time assistants will play a major role in implementing and coaching the new schemes since analysts are not allowed to give on-field instruction to players.
Although somewhat of an unconventional move, Frost thinks Rutledge is a good fit and that this approach will work best with his staff.
"It was a big decision," Frost said about hiring Rutledge. "There were a lot of guys that were interested in the job. We wanted to find the right guy. There were a bunch of good coaches. We wanted someone that fit with kind of our culture of the coaching staff as well. Really liked Rutledge's pedigree, where he has been, the type of person he is. Just being a family guy. I think he is going to fit in real well. We are going to try this.
"I didn't really want to burden someone like coach (Mike) Dawson with making sure our outside linebackers improved and running all four special teams. That's heavy role. I wanted somebody that could kind of do the X's and O's and schematics off the field for our special teams and really train our coaches to go out and implement it with our players and it's going to save our position coaches a lot of time and have somebody whose entire time is dedicated to making our special teams better."
Heading into the spring, the plan was for the assistant coaches to be in charge of their own aspect of special teams.
"It's going to be across the board. We kind of assigned them for spring," Frost said about the assistant's roles with special teams. "I'm not sure if that's going to stay true to exactly how we assigned it come fall, but there are three or four coaches that are working with every special team. We are going to give one coach the lead role on every special team and let them run the meetings and drive it through on our players. Obviously with (Jonathan) Rutledge kind of helping them and explaining scheme to the coaches."
Tight ends coach Sean Beckton says he's enjoyed working with Rutledge early on and is looking forward to the challenge of improving NU's special teams.
"I’m responsible for punt return, and I’m going to focus more on the back end of kickoff return," Beckton explained. "We’ve divided out a lot more responsibilities there. I’m looking forward to the challenge of really improving our special teams and return game, specifically punt return and kick-off return."
Inside linebackers coach Barrett Ruud is not only taking ownership of his specific duties, but also making sure that his linebackers are heavily involved in that phase of the game.
"I’m coaching everything out there," Ruud said at the beginning of spring football practice. "I’m coaching shield, I’m coaching punt team stuff. One thing about being the linebacker coach, you expect your guys specifically to be leaders of the special teams units. We’ve talked about how linebacker is a very versatile skill set and that’s what you need on special teams.
"You need guys that can strike blocks, that can tackle, you need guys that can block. I know it’s going to be a big emphasis in my room is that, that whole group in every phase really makes a big jump and that wins and loses games."
Defensive line coach Tony Tuioti says not only are they being coached up by Rutledge, but they're preaching the importance of special teams to their players.
“(Rutledge) is working with all of us. I'm for sure on field goal block," Tuioti said. "Special teams is a third of the game. You can win or lose games on special teams and you’ve got to be able to be solid on all three phases of the game. I bring it up to our defensive linemen, if you’re called up to help on that, that’s a big part of the game, you’ll win."