Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule promoted John Butler to permanent defensive coordinator as the Huskers’ defensive coaching staff begins to take shape. The promotion of Butler, who had been named interim defensive coordinator after Tony White’s departure to Florida State, was officially announced by the university Tuesday night after several reports had stated Butler was the choice.
The official hiring of Butler may set off a string of hirings on the defensive side of the ball. After Phillip Simpson changed his bio on X to read “Nebraska outside linebackers coach”, reports surfaced that Rhule was trending toward hiring longtime aide Phil Snow as associate head coach and Terry Bradden as defensive line coach. None of those three hirings were made official as of Tuesday night.
Butler has one year of defensive coordinator experience in 2013 at Penn State under Bill O’Brien, who will lead Boston College against the Huskers in the Pinstripe Bowl Dec. 28. Butler spent nearly two decades as a college coach, steadily rising through the ranks until being named the Nittany Lions’ DC in 2013. He had also served as defensive backs coach for PSU in 2012. Before that, he’d worked as a linebackers coach at Minnesota from 2007-10, among other stops. Butler moved onto the NFL with O’Brien to the Houston Texans, where Butler served as the DBs coach under O’Brien for four years. In 2018, Butler was hired as Bills defensive backs coach and coached there through the 2023 season. When he was not hired as Bills DC for 2024, he decided to resign his post and planned on taking the year off from coaching until Nebraska reached out after the departure of defensive backs coach Evan Cooper just before fall practice opened.
Simpson would return to Nebraska from Florida State, where he spend one year as an outside linebackers coach. Simpson was hired on Rhule’s first NU staff as a defensive quality control assistant. Before that, Simpson had made his name as a successful high school coach in the Miami area. Simpson knows Rhule well; he was a defensive lineman at Temple from 2004-07 and Rhule was his position coach in 2006.
Rhule’s ties are deep with Phil Snow as well. Rhule served as Snow’s graduate assistant at UCLA in 2001. The two reunited when Rhule was hired as Temple’s head coach in 2013 and named Snow as his defensive coordinator. Snow followed Rhule to Baylor in 2017, then to the Carolina Panthers in 2020, serving as Rhule’s DC both places. When Rhule was fired as Carolina’s head coach in 2022, Snow opted to work as an analyst for the Bears rather than following Rhule to Lincoln. Snow was hired in mid-November as an analyst.
Bradden would move to Lincoln from Kansas City, where he’s worked as assistant defensive line coach the last four years after four years as a defensive assistant on the Chiefs’ staff. Before that, Bradden was a quarterback graduate assistant at Bethune-Cookman.
Filling out the coaching staff has taken on added urgency with the transfer portal opening Wednesday and the Huskers’ targeting several top-notch defensive line recruits to fill for a unit that could lose all three starters and several experienced backups.