Nebraska defensive coordinator Tony White isn’t dodging his unit’s performance from the overtime loss to Illinois.

In Week 4, Nebraska started strong but ultimately unraveled with 21 points allowed after halftime. The good news is White believes the lack of a complete performance simply boils down to consistently executing.

While that is something that can be addressed and cleaned up, White did not hesitate to call out his defense with an acknowledgment to quarterback Dylan Raiola. With a true freshman “balling his ass off” and putting up 24 points, White said it’s up to the defense to “help his ass.”

“I think it was just the execution… and the consistency of execution. Coach (Matt Rhule) has laid down 3 things that he wants this team to play with. He wants to take the ball away, we want to be the most physical team and we want to execute. When you don’t do 2 of those things, it’s going to be hard to play good defensive football, especially with what the guys are doing on offense,” White explained.

“You’ve got a freshman QB balling his ass off. You score 24 points, you need to help his ass. That’s on the defense.”

The good news is that 31 points is by far the worst performance from White’s unit so far this season. The potential bad news is that every game is a Big Ten game the rest of the way, but the team is entering a winnable stretch of matchups.

We’ll find out if the defense can regroup and rebound against Purdue in Week 5.