Nebraska
Five Players From Nebraska That Florida State Should Monitor
Florida State is moving towards announcing the official hire of Nebraska’s Tony White as its next defensive coordinator. White has spent the last two years building some of the top defenses in the country in Lincoln. He’s a proven developer of talent and a confident personality that has earned the respect of those playing under him.
With the departure of White, it’s possible that some players from Nebraska will explore the opportunity of following him to Tallahassee. The NCAA Transfer Portal is set to open on Monday, December 9, and will span a period of 20 days.
READ MORE: Florida State Flips Fifth Prospect On First Day Of Early Signing Period
There are plenty of players on Nebraska’s roster that could help Florida State rebound in 2025. These are five Cornhuskers who we think the Seminoles should pursue if they decide to transfer.
Williams fits the mold of everything that Florida State is looking for in a long and productive edge-rusher. Plus, he’s got the benefit of spending two years working with White and new defensive line coach Terrance Knighton. He signed with the Cornhuskers in 2023 and jumped into the rotation this year.
Despite playing just 188 snaps, Williams finished second on the team with five sacks, along with 14 tackles and six tackles for loss. He recorded two sacks in back-to-back games against Purdue and Rutgers. His pass-rushing grade of 80.5 would be the highest on FSU’s roster. Williams stands at 6-foot-6, 250 pounds, and has serious potential. He has two years of eligibility remaining.
Veteran Jimari Butler would also make sense. He’s spent the last half-decade at Nebraska but announced his plans to transfer shortly after the news broke about White and Knighton leaving.
With Florida State switching to a 3-3-5 scheme, the defense will be playing three linebackers in most situations. The Seminoles are clearly in need of more additions to the room to build around redshirt sophomore Omar Graham Jr., sophomore Blake Nichelson, and sophomore Justin Cryer.
After not playing during his first two years at Nebraska, Gbayor blossomed when White arrived in Lincoln. He was a part-time starter in 2023 before stepping into a full-time role this season. Gbayor had a career year this fall, totaling 49 tackles, six tackles for loss, one sack, two fumble recoveries, and three pass deflections. He’s stout against the run at 6-foot-2, 230 pounds. Gbayor entered the portal shortly after the coaching changes happened and has one season of eligibility remaining.
This is also a spot where FSU could pursue Stefon Thompson again. The Seminoles brought him in for a visit last offseason prior to Thompson ultimately choosing Nebraska. He had 27 tackles, one fumble recovery, and two pass deflections in 2024.
Gbayor and Thompson had higher PFF grades than any linebacker on FSU’s roster.
If the last name rings a bell, it’s because Umanmielen is the younger brother of Ole Miss defensive end and former Florida Gator, Princely Umanmielen. Just in his second year, Umanmielen has shown flashes of brilliance marred by inconsistency. He’s just beginning to figure things out but has the tools and athletic traits to develop into something special if everything comes together.
New FSU defensive line coach Terrance Knighton is credited with landing the 6-foot-5, 245-pound linebacker out of high school and he spent both of his seasons at Nebraska in White’s defense. Since the moves, he’s hit the portal and the ties to Tallahassee could be enticing. Umanmielen has appeared in 23 games, with one start, and totaled 35 tackles, eight tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, and one pass deflection.
Umanmielen struggled to tackle consistently in 2024 but his pass-rushing grade was above average. He has two years of eligibility remaining and would be a good prospect for the Seminoles, with the potential to start immediately.
Florida State has promising young talent in the defensive backfield but could lose cornerback Azareye’h Thomas and safety Shyheim Brown. Wright would be able to plug and play immediately for the Seminoles with his knowledge of White’s scheme. After beginning his career at USC, he had a career year at Nebraska in 2024, recording 35 tackles, one tackle for loss, one sack, one forced fumble, five pass deflections, and two interceptions, one of which he returned for a touchdown.
Wright is a sure-tackler with solid size and plenty of experience. He has over 1,300 snaps to his name and would’ve been the second-highest-graded cornerback (73.8) on FSU’s roster, behind Azareye’h Thomas, this season. Wright has one season of eligibility remaining.
The Seminoles struggled to create turnovers this past season, only recording three interceptions in 12 games. Hartzog totaled more than that by himself at Nebraska in fewer appearances, picking off four passes. He pulled down an interception in back-to-back weeks against Indiana and Ohio State.
Plus, Hartzog has recorded two consecutive career-best seasons under the tutelage of White, who has a long history as a defensive backs coach. He totaled 43 tackles, fifth best on the team, two tackles for loss, four pass deflections, and four interceptions. Hartzog has seven interceptions during his time with the Cornhuskers.
Hartzog is a bit of an up-and-down player. He had a 58.7 PFF grade in 2024 but sat at 67.3 last year. Hartzog does present versatility with seven starts at safety and four at cornerback this past season, seeing 541 snaps. He has one season of eligibility remaining.
READ MORE: Top-100 Defensive Tackle Sticks With Florida State Despite Late Push From SEC Programs
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Emma Bullerman is spending her summer riding around in fields with her dad, and she’s thrilled about it. It’s not just for fun, either — she’s interning for the Prairie Plains Resource Institute and working alongside her father to conserve Nebraska grasslands.
“Prairie Plains has literally been in my life since I was born. I guess you could say I’m a bit of a grasslands nepo baby,” Bullerman said. “My dad is the restoration director, so even as a kid I would be out helping him in the field.”
Today, Emma is taking a more active role in aiding her dad’s work to restore native prairies.
“A lot of my summer will be in the truck with him driving across Nebraska to collect the native grassland seeds that we put into our restoration sites,” she said. “Basically, I’m just learning the ropes of everything that goes into grassland restoration.”
As a teen, Bullerman thought she wanted to do anything but follow her dad’s footsteps. Eventually, a few stalled paths helped her rediscover her love for her hometown.
“In high school and coming into college, I really thought I wanted to leave Nebraska and do something totally different from my dad,” she said. “I tried a few other directions, but pretty quickly could tell that I wasn’t passionate about them. I took a semester off, and then my boss at Prairie Plains reached out about helping with social media.”
It didn’t take long for Bullerman to catch the bug for conservation work and switch her major to fisheries and wildlife, the same degree program her father graduated from in 1995. In fact, she is a fourth-generation Husker with strong ties to ag and food science. Her grandfather is Dr. Lloyd Bullerman, a former a professor of food science, microbiology and food safety at the university, and her aunt studied food science at NU as well.
Getting back to Prairie Plains in her early college years helped Bullerman realize that she, too, had a calling toward this field.
“Being out in the field with my dad one day, I had a moment where I was like, ‘Oh, this is what I’ve been looking for. This is what I want to do.’ Finding my way back has been really, really beautiful.”
Working with her dad, she’s is feeling better than ever about her direction, her hometown and her future in Nebraska.
“Doing this work and studying at UNL has given me a whole new perspective on the state,” she said. “I used to be someone who was like, ‘I want to get out of here after I graduate.’ Restoring prairies and traveling all over Nebraska has helped me see that it’s so beautiful here, I just didn’t take the time to see it before.”
The future of data centers in Nebraska took center stage at a North Omaha town hall Thursday evening.
The event was hosted by State Sens. Terrell McKinney and Ashlei Spivey, who alongside Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh sponsored a bill in the Nebraska Legislature that looked to help regulate data centers.
Parts of their bill were adopted and passed in LB1010, which requires reports on annual power usage, water usage and ownership.
“Having this passed in a package showed a lot of bipartisan work,” Spivey told a crowd of attendees at Nelson Mandela Elementary School.
The proposed regulations were shaped in part by Bold Nebraska, an advocacy group focused on eminent domain and clean energy. Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and founder of Bold Nebraska, said before the bill passed there were “zero laws on the books” to address a boom in data centers.
“If one is coming into the community, we wanted to make sure that there were some basic transparency things in place,” Kleeb said.
Political discussions around data centers heated up in recent months following reporting by the Flatwater Free Press that showed Google is considering a data center in Nebraska that could require more than three times the amount of power the entire city of Lincoln uses at peak demand in the summer.
The Nebraska Legislature recently passed another bill, LB1261, that allows private developers to build and own power plants to serve a large industrial customer, including data centers. That bill was proposed by the governor’s office and celebrated by Gov. Jim Pillen.
“Our state is once again taking a bold and strategic step – one that will create an environment that attracts business and multibillion dollar investment, while legally preserving Nebraska’s unique and consumer-friendly public power model,” Pillen said at the time.
At Thursday’s town hall, McKinney called LB1261 “the bogeyman bill.”
“It’s a bill that the governor pushed through the legislature to allow for data centers to create their own power,” McKinney said. “It’s a bill that I stood on the floor and said this is going to harm our communities.”
LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Hundreds of people are without power in southeast Nebraska after a severe storm passed through Thursday morning.
The Lincoln Electric System outage map showed 115 customers without power across the city at 11:36 a.m.
Norris Public Power District’s outage map also shows 45 customers affected by the storm. As of 11:36 a.m., there were nine active outages.
According to the Nebraska Public Power District outage map, 657 customers were affected by the storm. Most of the affected customers were near Plattsmouth in southeast Nebraska. As of 11:37 a.m., 27 customers remain without power.
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