LINCOLN — When Rob Dvoracek became Nebraska’s linebackers coach, John Bullock was a safety and special teamer. Early on, Dvoracek spoke to Mikai Gbayor and asked the then-redshirt sophomore about his goals, and Gbayor said he just wanted to get on the field. He hadn’t played a snap in two years of college football.
A year later, Bullock and Gbayor are key members of a new-look linebacking corps.
Their ascension underscores just how much has changed within the room since Dvoracek took over, contrasting with the familiarity of a coach entering his second season at NU.
“Obviously when you get here there’s a transition,” Dvoracek told the Huskers Radio Network on Thursday. “You gotta get to know the players. You’re implementing a new system. There’s a lot of new. And just getting your feet in the ground, getting more comfortable with the players, the system, everything that you want to do. So it’s been really good. I’m looking forward to this season because we got more experience within the room. We got some younger players that we added in, and just that experience adds value.”
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Two of the mainstays of the defense, Luke Reimer and Nick Henrich, are both gone. Their contributions both on the field and as the leaders who set the tone for the rest of the linebackers have now fallen to Bullock and Gbayor among others.
Javin Wright played in all 12 games last season and will have a chance to build on his performance as a senior.
Jacob Bower and Gage Stenger have both bulked up after redshirt freshman seasons, Dvoracek said, Bower from around 195 pounds to almost 220. Stenger is around the same weight.
Stefon Thompson transferred from Syracuse. He brings a familiarity with Nebraska’s system, having played under defensive coordinator Tony White.
Dvoracek also praised freshman Vincent Shavers Jr., who enrolled at NU in January. As he adjusts to college football, he does so within a culture Henrich and Reimer helped establish years earlier.
“Those older guys that were in the room, they had very high standards and expectations,” Dvoracek said. “And so for me, to step into that room a year ago, they were like, ‘Hey, this is the way that we want to do things.’ And they worked at a really high level, and so John and Javin and Mikai and the rest of the guys were like, ‘That’s what we’re supposed to do.’”
Dvoracek and Nebraska’s linebackers have a sense of familiarity as they try to build off of a solid 2023. They no longer have to get accustomed to one another. They don’t have to learn a new system. The major changes are within the room, the offseason departures that created gaps tangible and intangible for the returners to fill.
“Coach White talks about it all the time, the guys last year did that, that we’re a completely new defense,” Dvoracek said. “It’s new guys. We’re not all the same guys that we were a year ago. So for us it’s like, how do we get better? And we’ve talked about those things all offseason, and it’s like we have to raise the standard from a year ago, and that’s what we’re trying to do right now.”