Phalen Sanford one of two walk-ons to earn Nebraska scholarship this week

On Saturday, Nebraska football head coach Matt Rhule announced two walk-ons have been added on scholarship.

One of them is defensive back Phalen Sanford, who's entering his fifth year in the program. Rhule didn't announce who the other walk-on is because the coach wanted to let the player know in person before announcing it publicly.

“We have two scholarships left over, so we’ll put two guys on. ... Phalen is an excellent player and a great teammate," Rhule said. "He gets it off of merit, the role he’s playing in the rotation at safety and then playing on all special teams.”

Sanford joins two more former in-state walk-ons who have earned scholarships this offseason: tight end Nate Boerkircher and linebacker John Bullock.

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Sanford is a former eight-man player who spent his high school career at Dundy County-Stratton in tiny Benkelman, Nebraska, in the southwestern part of the state. After spending one season at Hastings College, Sanford transferred to Nebraska, where he's largely been a key special teams player but recently has received backup reps at safety on defense. The 5-foot-11, 200-pound Sanford earned Special Teams Player of the Year in 2021.

Sanford has played in all 12 games in both 2021 and 2022. In 2022, Sanford recorded 12 tackles — eight of which were solos. For his career, he has 15 total tackles.

Sanford is just one of a large group of DBs who could see playing time in defensive coordinator Tony White's 3-3 stack defense, which deploys two corners, two safeties and one rover in the back end. The coaches have said they want to rotate a lot of players on defense, and Sanford seems like he's a strong candidate to be in at either safety or rover.

“We have a lot of dudes that can play DB, that’s for sure,” Sanford said earlier this month. “Especially when you can move them around at all positions. So if you think you have a position locked down, you can take the third string at some other position, and he can come play a new one. I think it helps us out a lot. There’s a lot of competition and a lot of depth.”

When asked about his personal goals for this upcoming season, Sanford didn't waste much time thinking about it.

“I wanna win,” he said. "This’ll be my fifth year. I just wanna win. I grew up a Nebraska fan. I’m tired of seeing how it is. As coach Rhule said, we’re tired of being sick and tired, so I just wanna win some games."

Sanford will now get to work toward reaching those goals as a scholarship player.

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