On Monday, Nebraska defensive front coach Mike Dawson talked extensively about the young group of players vying for time on the interior defensive line and what the challenges of inexperience look like this spring.
Perhaps the two leading candidates for snaps after veterans Casey Rogers and Ty Robinson are Nash Hutmacher and Mosai Newsom.Â
Hutmacher (Chamberlain, South Dakota) saw spot duty in 2021 and is one of the strongest players on the roster. Newsom (Waverly, Iowa) has battled injuries but now is entering his fourth collegiate season and has been in the program longer than the other young defensive line options.Â
Dawson was asked about both players individually on Monday.Â
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Here's what he said.Â
On Hutmacher: "The key for Nash is to put all those (weight room) numbers that he has — he can bench press this much and squat that much and power clean that much, all numbers that are off the charts — now can you do all three of those movements at once and bring that over to the football field? Really, when you’re playing football, yeah, are you doing that somewhere along the line in the game? Are you squatting? Yep. Are you power cleaning? Yep. Are you benching? Yes. Usually, you're doing all three of them at once. For him, that’s the big challenge."Â
Hutmacher, like the rest of the linemen that are healthy this spring, is getting a ton of work in practice.Â
"The more reps he gets, the better he gets at it," Dawson said. "With the defensive line, it’s about, where your eyes go, your hands go; and where your hands go, your feet go. All three of them work together. So for him, putting his eyes with his hands and his feet and in that order, knowing that that’s going to control it, that’s where he’s working on coming along."Â
On Newsom: "Mosai is a guy that has great twitchiness, he’s got bouncy feet, he’s light on his feet," Dawson said. "He does a great job of that stuff. Kind of still learning to be more physical in the run game."
Newsom said he weighed about 260 pounds coming out of high school and has been up to as heavy as 305 in college, but is in the 295-298 range this spring.
"He was more of a skilled player, kind of edge guy coming through high school," Dawson said. "But he had a great offseason with (strength coach Zach) Duval, so he’s bigger than you probably saw him last. He’s coming along that way and just learning to play square to the line of scrimmage with that new strength as opposed to trying to out-athlete guys all the time.
"At this level, those guys across from us, they’re big and athletic, so we’ve got to do a good job staying square and using our athleticism but also being able to tie that into the strength."Â