Opportunity is now for Nebraska's defensive backs, new and returning

Nebraska’s defense and secondary have been trending upward in the last few seasons. However, the Huskers lost three starters with over 120 games of experience and 78 starts among the three players.

Marquel Dismuke, Deontai Williams and Cam Taylor-Britt left a whooping hole in Nebraska’s secondary and after the departure of the team’s seniors, the defensive backs were left with seven players, according to its position coach, Travis Fisher.

With a solid trio in front of the young players for so long, Quinton Newsome, Myles Farmer and Braxton Clark are the only returning Huskers with much experience. Newsome started every game at corner in 2021 and Farmer started the final four games with Williams injured. Clark has played in 28 games in his career at Nebraska and has recorded 17 total tackles.

So, the Huskers and Fisher added seven defensive backs during the off-season: two transfers, two from junior college and three freshmen.

Arizona State transfer Tommi Hill, Northern Iowa transfer Omar Brown and JUCO products DeShon Singleton and Javier Morton all joined the roster. All four transfers are on campus for spring practice along with freshman Jaeden Gould. Freshmen Malcolm Hartzog and Jalil Martin will arrive in the summer.

Fisher said the five new defensive backs have been “excellent.”

“I couldn’t have brought in a better group of guys character-wise,” he said. “Those guys are awesome. Those guys jumped right in and, for the most part, the guys that were here already were younger players as far as being on the field but veterans as far as a culture.”

As the most experienced returning Husker in the group, Newsome said he has taken on a leadership role and assists the new faces in the secondary.

“It’s completely different from last year considering that I was a young guy, I was the new guy playing with all these old guys and now it’s like the complete opposite,” he said. “I’m really just trying to do what they did for me by helping all the younger guys, all the new faces and everything so it’s a great experience.”

While Nebraska lost a lot of experience, they have brought in players with experience in the Power Five, FBS and at the top levels in JUCO.

Hill chose Arizona State over Nebraska coming out of high school and Fisher said Hill said he should have chosen the Huskers the first time around. The 6-foot-0, 205-pound cornerback played one season for the Sun Devils and has three seasons of eligibility remaining.

“Tommi Hill is a very good football player. He makes plays, is all over the place,” Fisher said. “It’s all about getting Tommi into the playbook and he’s in the playbook and he’s hungrier than a hungry dog. He made some plays today in practice and he’s gonna continue to make a lot of plays.”

Brown transferred from Northern Iowa after three seasons with two seasons of edibility and can take a redshirt season. Brown will miss the spring with an injury suffered at NIU. Fisher called him “a good guy with some experience that’s played a lot of football.”

“He’s been one of the top guys on his level,” Fisher said of the 6-foot-1, 200-pound cornerback. “Coming in as a two-time All-American from Northern Iowa, he’s a guy who’s from the Midwest and wanted to play football at a high level. I think this was a good choice for Omar and a good fit for us as well.”

Morton spent a season at Garden City Community College in Kansas and has three seasons of eligibility. The 6-foot-2, 185-pound defensive back was a four-star prospect coming out of Stephenson High School and was committed to Alabama.

Singleton is a standout JUCO player who joins the Huskers from Hutchinson Community College in Kansas. The 6-foot-3, 205-pound safety has three seasons of eligibility with the ability to use a redshirt year.

“Just a big guy that can cover, he can play corner as well,” Fisher said. “I think DeShon, to take him as a corner, sometimes would have been what most guys like but the size part of it and the movement skill part of it will definitely working in this defense as a safety.”

Both Fisher and defensive coordinator Erik Chinander said Singleton spends a lot of time in Fisher’s office and with grad assistants learning the playbook and watching film.

Chinander listed Williams, Dismuke and Taylor-Britt as big losses along with nickelback JoJo Domann but said he feels good about the players, old and new, in the secondary.

“There’s players that were in that program that I feel good about,” Chinander said. “There’s players that have transferred in and/or come from junior college or freshmen that are even here right now that have all looked really well in practice.”

By adding so many experienced and talented defensive backs, the competition is ramping up, which is just how Fisher likes it. He said whether the back played 80 percent of the season last year or just got to Nebraska, “your opportunity is now.”

“We’ve been bringing more competition,” Newsome said. “It makes one person go harder. It just made the room way more competitive in many ways. I would say it’s changed because of new faces so we’re trying to get really close like we used to be so we’ve been really working toward that in the off-season and I think everything’s coming along.”