It sure seems like Tony White had a good thing going at Nebraska.

In each of his two seasons as the Cornhuskers' defensive coordinator, his defense ranked in the top 20 nationally in both total defense and scoring defense. His side of the ball was a big reason why this year's Nebraska team got to six wins and qualified for a bowl game for the first time since 2016.

And, yet, even when the FSU football program isn't in the best spot coming off a 2-10 season, it has a certain appeal that White couldn't resist becoming a part of this offseason.

"When this opportunity came, it came up so last-minute, just out of the blue, I thought it was an opportunity that I had to take. You just couldn't pass it up..." White said Wednesday in his introductory press conference as FSU's defensive coordinator after his hire was announced Dec. 5. "You talk about Florida State, you talk about one of the true, great, historic football programs. And then obviously what just happened a couple years ago, them giving themselves a chance to be in the mix for a national championship.

"You take the area and the young men that you're able to recruit down here, I think some of the best football players in the country are from this area regionally ... The ability to be down here, the ability to recruit the talent we're recruiting down here, the way coach Norvell has put together this staff and the way he's been shown to do things, the success that Florida State has had in the past. And just recently, I think this is a place that we'll do it all again."

Here are three takeaways from White's introductory FSU press conference:

A major frustration surrounding this past season's FSU defense was the lack of consistent physicality.

In what was a problem at times throughout Adam Fuller's tenure as FSU defensive coordinator, the Seminoles too often missed tackles in big moments or struggled to finish plays to limit explosives.

It's fair to wonder if a lot of those issues came from FSU electing not to fully tackle much at all on the practice field outside of the occasional scrimmage. While practice physicality has scaled back across college football over the last few decades, some teams still hold practices each week where they tackle to the ground and work on physicality.

It sounds like FSU may be taking a step into that direction with the hire of White.

"You can talk about being as physical as you want, but if you don't practice that way and you don't prepare that way, you ain't gonna be physical, right?" White said. "You can talk about playing with so much effort, but if you don't demand it on the field, it's not going to happen."

Obviously, this would require Mike Norvell and new FSU offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn being on board with this increase in practice physicality. While Norvell hasn't yet commented on that, Malzahn appears to be good with it.

"I think it's a mindset. I think if you're truly going to be that, it's got to be who you are," Malzahn said Wednesday when asked about the physicality of the run game. "It can't just be talk about it. You do that on the practice field. You do that instilling in every one of your players, not just the linemen and all that. So really excited for that aspect."

White has a solid track record of instantly improving the run defense of his unit upon his arrival. After Nebraska ranked 101st nationally in yards per carry (4.55) the year before White arrived, the 2023 Nebraska defense ranked sixth nationally, allowing 2.97 yards per carry.

"You have to set this vision of how you want things to be and then you've got to give the guys a pathway and a process through which to get there. In doing so, when you invest in the process, that builds confidence," White said. "Confidence is not walking around looking good and pretty in the mirror. Confidence is knowing that you put in the work and you put in the time and you put the effort and strain to put yourself in a position to go get what you want. If we can get the guys there to believe in the process and to really embrace the process and do those things and give them a pathway to see that vision, I think we'll have a lot of success."

The first thing you probably learned about White after his FSU hiring was announced was the unique 3-3-5 defense he runs.

That scheme with three defensive linemen, three linebackers and five defensive backs on the field traces back throughout White's football career to when Rocky Long -- one of the originators of the 3-3-5 -- was his defensive coordinator when he was a linebacker at UCLA.

White said Wednesday that the 3-3-5 has traditionally been used at places where it's a bit harder to bring in defensive linemen and that it has some perks, like it being easier to teach and utilize different personnel packages.

However, coaching at Nebraska and now being at FSU, White realizes the importance of versatility and says he anticipates being multiple in terms of defensive formation usage with the Seminoles, building the offense around the players he has and will add over the next few weeks.

"I think the most important thing is always the players. I think you can get kind of pigeonholed into, saying, 'I run this and I do this,' and the great thing about the experience at Nebraska and under coach (Matt) Rhule was we were trying to figure out the way to incorporate all the personnel and all the talent that you had," White said. "Coming over here and looking at the roster, there's some really, really talented individuals here. Some really, really good football players, some really good young men as I get to know them. We're going to be multiple, we're going to put the guys in the best positions possible to go out there and let them play really fast and not confused. Be really physical, be really aggressive, the things that Coach Norvell wants and really just kind of tailor what we do to the players we have and the players coming in."

A big part of this desire for versatility and multiple formations, White said, is derived from wanting to keep up with how offensive football has rapidly changed and evolved over the last few years.

In his opinion, gone are the days of just sitting in the same defensive formation all game long and expecting your defense to have success.

"These (offensive coordinators) are too smart for you to sit there in one front and one defense the whole game and just think that, you're just gonna physically beat them like that. That doesn't happen," White said. "You look at Georgia and Oregon and all them, you see them jumping in different fronts, stemming different personnel packages, different coverages. You see all that variety in there. So a lot of the (3-3-5) defense is used across the country. It's just disguised different ways. And so we're going to do that here. You've got some elite talent that that is in the building...We can attract some of the best young men, student-athletes, football players in the country. It's going to be cool to put together the things, let them go play some ball and have success."

At least so far, the two new coaches added to FSU's defensive coaching staff are familiar ones to White.

New FSU defensive line coach Terrance Knighton was announced last Friday after spending the last two years as Nebraska's defensive line coach.

The very next day, FSU announced without any previous reporting that Evan Cooper was being hired as the Seminoles' new safeties coach after he was previously Nebraska's defensive passing game coordinator and secondary coach in 2023.

A former third-round draft pick who spent four seasons with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Knighton actually came from Rhule's tree instead of White's. He played for Rhule at Temple and was his assistant defensive line coach for the Carolina Panthers in 2021-22 before joining Rhule at Nebraska.

Cooper also came from Rhule's tree. He went from being a graduate assistant for Rhule at Temple to a position coach at Baylor and then a cornerbacks coach on his Carolina Panthers' staff before spending one year on Rhule's Nebraska staff.

Despite White not having the original tie to either of these two coaches, he's now brought both of them along with him to Tallahassee, citing the relationship he has with them and he saw them develop with their players as the reason why.

"As you get older -- and I don't see myself as being old like that, but I guess I'm older -- the times where you have the most fun is when you've had the best relationships with the guys. You see their investment, they see your investment and it's like a partnership, right," White said. "Their investment in the young men I think really, really stands out, and then us collectively coming together for the first time at my old school and being able to put a product together on the grass where the young men really made it their own. Really went out there and they played so hard, those guys played so physically...

"That investment in the young men, that that really bonded me with those guys and then the being able to have the same kind of vision for what it looks like on the grass, I think those are the two most important things."

Quote book, videos of Malzahn and White

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