Chinander/Frost do coach turnovers (and scoring off turnovers) in ways that greatly increase the likelihood of forcing turnovers that would otherwise not occur. If you listen to what they're currently upset about, they're telling you one of the big ways: Fischer/Chinander/Frost want the CBs to be turning to play the ball aggressively, and they're trying to get them to understand the techniques and timing that goes into that. This doesn't just happen. When you see a DB put his hand between the offensive player's hands and strip down on an arm to break up the pass, that was taught, and that was rep'd in practice: Chinander/Fisher/Frost do NOT want that type of mentality. They want the Deon Sanders mentality of playing every ball in the air like it belongs to them. Nebraska's D-backs have not played that style of pass defense for a long time. When a Safety makes a pick on an errant pass, that's pretty much your typical interception, and everyone eventually gets those, but when your CB goes airborne with the WR and high-points the ball, that is athleticism and coaching and lots and lots of reps in practice.
Nebraska made this switch before. The George Darlington DBs of the 80s and 90s played the receiver and not the ball. Watch highlights (or, more accurately, "lowlights") of the 80s and early 90s bowl games against Florida State and Miami and you'll see play after play where the opposing QB heaves it up and a fast WR goes up and makes a play ... over top of an Nebraska defender who never even turned around. When they shifted to the attacking 4-3 defense in the spring of '92, they also shifted to a lot more man-to-man coverage on the edges with CBs in bump & run, and those guys were taught to play the ball. Barron Miles was one of the first CBs to play this way, but everyone after him was expected to do the same. There is a tradeoff, though, in that it does open the team up to some big plays when they do get burned, but they were betting on more pressure from an aggressive pass rush combined with faster LBs and Safeties to cover in space would mean that there would be more jumpballs, and the CBs would win some of those. Go back and watch that '96 Fiesta Bowl and look at how many times the CBs got burned by Florida receivers. You don't remember that so much because they also made a lot of picks. That is a combination of defensive scheme, coaching technique, player athleticism, and lots and lots of reps.
Chins also stresses stripping the ball, how to cover the ball (fetal position in traffic, but like a shortstop on a low grounder in the open field), high-pointing tipped balls, etc., and they do daily drills to work on all of the above. All coaches will say that they work on those things, but very few coaches work on those things every day. When you drill it and rep it to the point that there is no conscious thought about how to make an open-field tackle or QB sack while also stripping with the off-hand, you see the result of coaching. Maurice Clarett stripped the Miami defender of the ball and recovered a fumble after Miami had caused a turnover in the 2003 championship game. When they asked him about it afterwards, he said that he hadn't really even thought about it: they had practiced that in their RB drills every day, all year, and that just happened to be the first time that he had had the opportunity to use that skill in a game. When we say "instinct took over," what we really mean is that "he did what he was trained to do without thinking."
Patience. Patience. Good things will come.
