Before they make quarterbacks scramble on Saturdays, the Husker defensive linemen conduct their own weekday scurrying sessions.
"There's a lot of times we're running out of the meeting room seven minutes before practice starts, scrambling to get dressed," said Husker senior defensive end Pierre Allen. "But it's a good thing. We make sure we don't leave meetings with a question not answered."
Forgive them for any untied shoes in their haste to get to the practice field. Because, so far, Nebraska's defensive line has had most of the right answers.
Ndamukong Suh may be in a different area code these days, but the pressure from the Husker front four has remained.
Everyone knows by now about Washington quarterback Jake Locker's horror show last Saturday -- the 4-of-20 passing stat line that includes two interceptions.
Nebraska's defensive backs deservedly received praise for their domination against Locker.
But such a stat line doesn't come from secondary brilliance alone. There must also be pressure by the front four.
The Huskers sacked Locker once, but a quick check of sack statistics is no way to formulate a clear view of the impact a defensive line did or did not have on a quarterback.
The bottom line: Nebraska's front four annoyed Locker.
Had him hurried, had him trapped, had him flustered.
"Obviously, sacks are a measurement of success and it's a tool a lot of people use to measure our pressure," said Husker defensive line coach John Papuchis. "But in reality, when we're rushing from a four-man look and we're being disciplined in our rush lanes and making sure scrambling quarterbacks don't get out of the pocket, there's give and take.
"And a lot of times collapsing the pocket is our main objective, and I thought we did a good job of that on Saturday."
Collapse that pocket and Husker defensive coordinator Carl Pelini says you'll often see a quarterback panic even before he maybe should.
"You'll see guys step into a sack not because the pressure's great but because he feels the pocket collapsing," said Pelini, who works closely with the defensive line. "People are covered and he just steps right into people's arms."
Such tenacity by the defensive line has allowed Nebraska to be strategic as to how to utilize its blitz packages.
As Papuchis pointed out, the Huskers didn't blitz much against Washington.
And the fact that Nebraska doesn't need to blitz much makes any blitz all that more effective when it actually comes.
Take a play in the third quarter of Saturday's game, when the Huskers unleashed linebacker Lavonte David on a blitz. Having not seen anything like it all game, Locker had no answer for it, throwing the ball toward the nearest Gatorade bucket as fast as he could.
"Part of Bo (Pelini)'s philosophy has always been to pressure with a purpose," Papuchis said. "We don't just dial up a bunch of pressures and hope that we hit the right call at the right time. When we pressure, it's with a specific reason."
As you might imagine, defensive linemen take a certain amount of satisfaction in generating enough pressure that blitzing isn't necessary.
"It's huge when we can just double guys in the secondary and drop everyone back in coverage knowing we're going to get a rush up front," said Husker junior defensive tackle Jared Crick. "We pride ourselves on not having to blitz."
So far, so good.
Of course, this is where you insert the line about Nebraska's defensive line still not being a finished product.
You've never arrived, especially in September.
Asked about the rushing defense, Crick says: "We're giving up way more yards than we want to."
The Huskers currently rank 55th in rushing defense, giving up 138 yards a game.
But there's a good vibe in the Husker camp about where this may be headed, and the continued success of the front four is as big a reason as any for that optimism.
Last year may seem difficult to top from a defensive perspective, but several coaches and players said they think this defense may be further ahead compared with where the Blackshirts were at this point last year.
Papuchis would agree.
"Now, are we where we were when we kind of reached our pinnacle of defensive play last year? Probably not," Papuchis said. "There's still a lot of room to improve for us, but I like where we are right now and our guys are working hard to continue to improve."
So keep those in-depth position group meetings coming. Allen doesn't mind. After all, seven minutes is a lot more time than those quarterbacks have to scramble.
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