‘Amazing to watch’: Travis Fisher, Huskers revel in watching Taylor-Britt and others excel at Combine | Football

Monday morning in Travis Fisher’s secondary meeting was all business.

There’s not much time for water-cooler talk when the second week of Nebraska’s spring ball is underway and you’re looking at building an almost entirely retooled back end of a defense.

Still, the performance that the Huskers’ former teammate and Fisher’s former pupil, cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt, put on at the NFL Scouting Combine on Sunday wasn’t far from Fisher’s mind when he spoke with reporters after practice.

“Cam did a great job yesterday,” Fisher said. “I was happy as crap to see him go out and do the stuff that he’s been doing for years here.”

Taylor-Britt turned in a 4.38-second 40-yard dash at the Combine in Indianapolis, among the fastest marks in a fleet group of defensive backs. At 5-foot-11 and 196 pounds, Taylor-Britt impressed Fisher with his on-field drill work, too.

“It looked just like practice, the way he handled his technique and his individual workouts was right on point,” said Fisher, who posted videos on social media over the weekend of himself cheering on Taylor-Britt and JoJo Domann from his living room. “I understood everything he was doing when he was doing it. He didn’t change a thing.”

Taylor-Britt was one of four Huskers to work out at the Combine, along with center Cam Jurgens, linebacker JoJo Domann and tight end Austin Allen. Senior NU nickel Chris Kolarevic said he enjoyed keeping tabs on his former teammates.

“It was awesome to see. It’s so cool,” he said. “It’s literally just guys living their dreams on TV. It’s amazing to watch and it’s so, so cool.”

Some were surprised that Taylor-Britt ran a blazing time, but Kolarevic? Not so much.

“He’s a freaky athlete. He’s a freaky, explosive athlete. It didn’t surprise me at all,” he said.

Taylor-Britt has a chance to be the third player in the past three years out of Fisher’s secondary to make an NFL roster, joining Lamar Jackson and Dicaprio Bootle, who went undrafted last year but saw time late in the season for the Kansas City Chiefs.

The fifth-year NU secondary coach is known as one of the best developers in the country, but he also gave Taylor-Britt the bulk of the credit for the player he’s become.

“To be honest with you, it’s about those guys giving me the opportunity to coach them,” Fisher said. “Every last DB that I’ve coached that’s played in the NFL — when these couple of guys go, I’ll have about 13 — the guys have been able to just let me coach them. It’s been tough, trust me. Some days I get on them so much they probably think I hate them, but I just have so much passion into just watching them develop. Then I also give them so much love when it’s time as well.” 

Taylor-Britt was a high school quarterback in Montgomery, Alabama, but Fisher and defensive coordinator Erik Chinander believed he could turn himself into a high-level defensive back. 

“Maybe I took a guy that couldn’t backpedal. Maybe I took a guy that had never played DB before, like Cam,” Fisher said. “Then teach him how to get into a DB stance. Then teach him how to backpedal. Then teach him this, teach him that. But what I didn’t give Cam is his heart. I didn’t give him that. He came to Nebraska with that. And Cam’s God gifts. I didn’t give him that. So just being able to recruit guys like that and then bring them here, the biggest asset these guys have is their ears. If they give me their ears, I know we’ve got something good.”

It’s an eyes and ears type of spring in the secondary for Fisher, who now has to replace three starters plus Domann, who was trusted with extensive coverage responsibility.

But those young guys also saw Taylor-Britt living out a dream at the Combine over the weekend, and that’s pretty good motivation itself.

“I’m pretty sure the younger guys in the room right now want to have the chance to be in that position, to be seen by the National Football League and be scouted by the National Football League,” Fisher said. “They know what they have to do to get to that point. It starts right here, as soon as they wake up in the morning and right before they go to bed in the choices that they make when they wake up about what kind of person and what kind of player and teammate I want to be.”