Isaac Gifford returns to Nebraska with a ‘purpose’ to motivate and to win

LINCOLN, Neb. — Isaac Gifford is big on action. No amount of talk replaces work or preparation.

But he’s also a believer in using his voice to impact change.

“You speak it into existence,” Gifford said of Nebraska’s defensive focus on creating more turnovers in 2024.

Gifford is a senior safety who recorded a team-high 86 tackles last year for a defense that ranked seventh nationally in yards allowed per play. He has started 22 games the past two seasons and chose to return in 2024 for a bonus fifth year of eligibility because he felt, deep within himself, his job in Lincoln was not finished.

He enters this season as a model for teammates young and old.

“He’s someone I want to be as a leader,” linebacker MJ Sherman said. “He’s someone I admire, his work ethic, how he plays, how he talks, how he thinks.”

Nebraska returns several leaders who could have left to make a run at the NFL — offensive linemen Ben Scott and Bryce Benhart, cornerback Tommi Hill, defensive linemen Ty Robinson and Nash Hutmacher.

Isaac Gifford (No. 2) had 86 tackles last year. (Dylan Widger / USA Today)

Gifford stands out among even that elite group as the one player on the roster driven most strongly by motivational forces unique to Nebraska.

“Giff motivates me,” safety DeShon Singleton said. “He plays like everything is on the line for him. He literally bleeds red and white right now. He’s a Husker through and through.”

Late this summer after the Huskers completed a grueling session of stadium stairs, strength coach Corey Campbell called on Gifford to address the team.

Cameras captured the moment for Nebraska’s documentary series, “Chasing 3.” It’s featured in the episode that premiered at the start of preseason practice last month.

Campbell said he and Gifford talked previously about purpose. “I just want you to tell the group about your purpose,” Campbell told Gifford, “why you’re here.”

Gifford reminded the Huskers that his brother, Tennessee Titans linebacker Luke Gifford, played at Nebraska. Isaac grew up watching Luke, whose senior season in 2018 coincided with the first year for former coach Scott Frost.

A group of players on that team “created a foundation,” Gifford said, as Nebraska shrugged off a slow start under Frost and won four of its final six amid tight defeats against Iowa and Ohio State. With Luke and the other foundational leaders gone a year later, the Huskers lost big against those same Buckeyes as part of five defeats in six midseason games.

The bad stretch sunk Nebraska’s season. Frost’s program never recovered.

Last year, Gifford said, a core group of veteran players built a similar foundation in coach Matt Rhule’s first season. When Gifford faced a choice about his future, he picked the option that Luke didn’t have — to come back.

Gifford had watched Nebraska in 2019, his senior season at Lincoln Southeast High School, and he saw the leadership structure crumble.

“I wasn’t doing that,” Gifford told the team. “I see a foundation, and I knew that if we got this s— right, we’re gonna f—ing win. So I didn’t come back to f—ing lose. At all. That is not my mindset. I don’t care how many times I puke on the goddamn stairs, I’ll do it again, cause I’m not losing this year. And I’m not going to watch it go to s—.

“So that’s my purpose, and that’s why I’m here.”

In the middle of this summer, Gifford and the Nebraska defensive backs learned that Evan Cooper, the secondary coach who directed them last season and recruited more than half of the players who play at a young position group, was leaving.

The timing stunk. News broke July 5 of Cooper’s exit and one day later that Rhule was set to hire John Butler, a successful assistant who left the Buffalo Bills as secondary coach this year.

Gifford and some of the older defensive backs got together and talked about their situation.

“You’ve just gotta go on,” he said. “There’s a lot of young guys recruited by coach Cooper. But they’ve stuck with us. They’re putting their heads down and grinding.”

Butler showed up later in July, his attitude toward football on display from the start. Butler said this week that he’s yet to acquire a car or a house in Lincoln.

“I’m not worried about the car,” he said. “I’m not worried about where I’m going to live.”

He’s worried about getting to know his players. And not just their strengths on the field. He can see that from game and practice film. Butler wanted to learn about the people with whom he was set to work during the next several months in tense times. He gravitated to Gifford.

Butler coached as a graduate assistant at Texas with the 1998 team that snapped the Huskers’ 47-game home winning streak. The coach came to Lincoln and lost as the Penn State linebackers coach in 2012.

He had a picture in his mind of the ideal Nebraska player.

“Giff basically fits that mold,” Butler said. “That’s the expectation when you walk in the door. And then you get it, and you’re like, ‘This dude’s a Cornhusker.’”

In his players, Butler said he’s looking for leaders who do more than make themselves better.

“Leaders by example are good,” the coach said. “But leaders that have the DNA inside of them to really bring people with them (that’s when you’ve got something).”

Gifford took note immediately of Butler’s style.

“We’re going to get along just fine,” Gifford said.

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For Gifford, the countdown to this final season in Lincoln began long before Luke put on a Nebraska jersey in 2014.

Gifford, 23, came of age as a Nebraska fan around the time Lavonte David recorded a program-record 152 tackles in 2010 and earned first-team All-America honors in 2011. Gifford studied David before he got to Lincoln Southeast, the high school program that produced Barrett Ruud, the Huskers’ all-time leading tackler and former linebackers coach.

Frank Solich coached at Southeast. Its athletic hall of fame is something of a shrine to the Huskers. Gifford can add to his legacy among the greats by driving a turnaround at Nebraska after seven consecutive losing seasons.

“The only way I can say it is, Giff’s impact on the defense is major,” Sherman said. “He’s the guy who’s always right on time with things. He knows his assignment. He knows how to execute. And that’s the standard.”

Gifford did plenty for the Blackshirts last year. His eight pass breakups ranked second on the team to Hill’s. Gifford’s 6.5 tackles for loss established a career high.

His aim? To do more this year. Nebraska generated just 14 turnovers on defense in 2023 to rank 106th nationally.

Whatever is needed to elevate that figure in this second season under defensive coordinator Tony White — if Gifford has to talk change into existence — he said he’s ready.

“My main goal since I’ve been here is to get Nebraska back to the place where everybody respected them,” he said. “That’s ultimately my goal. That’s what we’re going to get done.”

(Top photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)