INFLECTION POINTS: Can Jahsear Whittington Bring Back The Front Disruption?
Nebraska’s defensive line last season had little ability to break down blockers, redirect ballcarriers, or shoot gaps. The sophomore transfer from Pittsburgh excels at all three.
PROGRAMMING NOTE: This is an entry in an occasional offseason series of in-depth film reviews for individual players who have the potential to make or break Nebraska’s upcoming season. These posts are essentially scouting reports, meant to present the strengths and weaknesses of unknown players who will be stepping into big roles for NU. These reports examine players from a talent, technicality, and skill set perspective, meant as honest and clear-eyed evaluations. New entries will appear sporadically throughout the offseason.
PREVIOUS ENTRIES: 2026 / Anthony Colandrea 2025 / Elijah Pritchett, Elijah Jeudy, Dane Key
The majority of Nebraska’s issues defending the run in 2025 — based off both the film and data — seemed player or roster construction driven and not caused by the scheme or deployment.
The main schematic complaints levied by fans and media at the run defense’s dramatic regression last year bear little weight under scrutiny. Many have criticized NU’s use of three-player fronts in the 3-3-5 as being ineffective or light against the run, but NU used three-player fronts on only about 20% of its total defensive snaps last season, and those plays out of three-player fronts had a high success rate (65%) and delivered much more efficient defense than plays out of four-player fronts (65% of snaps with a 56% success rate) and five-player fronts (15% of snaps with a 52% success rate). Likewise, fired first-year coordinator John Butler has been accused of being too coverage centric or adopting a model meant to stop NFL passing attacks instead of defending the rough-and-tumble run games of the Big Ten, but my charting from last season had Butler blitzing more and playing overall heavier boxes than Tony White’s great run defenses in 2023 and 2024.
Basically all of my charting says the same thing: Nebraska played largely the same defensive scheme in 2025 as it did in 2024 and 2023 (and perhaps even a bit more aggressively against the run) and went from a great run defense to a quite poor one because the players it was deploying got a lot worse. In 2023 and 2024, when NU had a bevy of disruptive defensive linemen like Ty Robinson, Nash Hutmacher, MJ Sherman, Jimari Butler, James Williams, and Princewill Umanmielen — who could break down blocks, shoot gaps, and redirect ball carriers — that defensive scheme gave NU the No. 6 and 17 defenses in rushing efficiency. In 2025, when NU had its nose tackle getting driven 15 yards down the field by a double team, that scheme came in 114th in rushing efficiency:
Improving the individual play of its defensive linemen, then, became one of the key needs of the offseason, either through development of those currently on the roster or by bringing in new players. We won’t be able to tell much about the behind-the-scenes work of new defensive line coach Corey Brown and new edges coach Roy Manning on the returnees until the games kick off,1 but NU also did augment its ranks through the transfer portal, bringing in senior Boston College tackle Owen Stoudmire, UCLA senior edge rusher Anthony Jones, and Pittsburgh redshirt sophomore interior defensive lineman Jahsear Whittington.
Whittington comes to Nebraska with the most intriguing profile and most seeming upside as an undersized but athletic disruptor with good production in a limited role. At just six feet tall and 260 pounds for Pitt last season, Whittington was a high three-star or low four-star recruit (depending on the service) out of Philadelphia and spent two seasons with the in-state Panthers, redshirting in his first and playing as a top interior rotational piece last year. Whittington — behind two returning starters on the depth chart this year, one of whom transferred to Notre Dame in the offseason as one of the top DTs in the class — mainly saw the field as part of the rush and stunt package in 2025, subbing on when Pitt was running a line game or blitz. But he also played over 100 snaps on base downs, too, as a general reserve and even started at one of the IDL spots in Pitt’s Military Bowl loss to East Carolina. In that limited playing time last season, Whittington generated four “stops” (tackles that constitute a loss on play for the offense by success rate) against the run, and had 13 pass-rush pressures on a 9.7% win rate, all strong rate stats for his total snap count. Whittington split about even time as a 3-tech (aligned near the guard) and as a nose tackle (aligned near the center), as Pitt treats its defensive tackles interchangeably and wanted speed off the ball at both spots in its primarily penetrating four-down system (similar to what Nebraska will run this season).
Even though he projected as a likely starter for the Panthers in 2026, Whittington entered the portal, ranking as around the 470th-player in the portal per 24/7Sports and On3. He chose Nebraska late in the process and only took one other visit, to Baylor. He was NU’s sixth-highest rated signee out of the portal but generated buzz after he flashed several explosive and disruptive reps in the spring game against the No. 1 offensive line and was praised by coaches all offseason.
To get a sense of what Whittington’s strengths and weaknesses are and how he could help NU, I watched his games against Stanford, Notre Dame, Miami (FL), Boston College, and Syracuse. I also watched his bowl start against East Carolina.2 Those plays totaled almost 150 snaps of power-conference competition (or close to it, in ECU’s case) to evaluate his game.
Let’s get into the evaluation. With the video clips on this one, I varied on showing the clip from the sideline and endzone angles at full speed, but I always showed a replay of the endzone angle at frame-by-frame speed for a second viewing because defensive line technique can be hard to evaluate at full speed.
Whittington is wearing #4 in all the clips below. I’ve pointed out his position before the snap if he’s difficult to see.
STRENGTHS
Speed Off Ball/Snap Timing
The thing that stands out most from Whittington’s tape at Pitt is how quickly he gets off the snap and into the frame of offensive linemen:
The technical and athletic elements with Whittington off the ball all happen fast: Fast snap recognition, fast first step, fast leg drive and fast hand/punch deployment. He converts his speed off the snap into outward explosiveness that allows him to get knockbacks as an undersized player against bigger and stronger offensive linemen, allowed him to beat OL to spots to generate penetration, and helped him not get moved downfield by double teams by getting into the blockers’ chests before they could establish the double.
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