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Nebraska defensive back Tommi Hill (0) looks back at a flag to see he was penalized for pass interference against North Dakota on Saturday at Memorial Stadium.

LINCOLN — Nebraska cornerback Tommi Hill is always talking.

He’s loud enough at practice, where he dared quarterback Casey Thompson to “throw it my way” during the spring.

But during games? “He’s even louder,” safety Myles Farmer said.

And unrelenting. Two starts into Hill’s Husker tenure, Farmer can already see Hill getting in receivers’ heads during games.

But sometimes, after Hill makes a play, he talks or celebrates a second too long.

“He’s hype, but they’re going tempo,” Farmer said. “We’ve got to line back up. Tommi knows what he’s doing, it’s just about staying tuned in.”

Defensive coordinator Erik Chinander has seen this dichotomy in his players before. He loves their intensity until the moment it hurts the team, and the line between that moment and Chinander’s love is thin.

His advice on how to manage it:

“It’s like a fire, right?” Chinander said Tuesday. “Used correctly, it can heat the house. Used incorrectly, it can burn the sucker down. I want that emotion, I want that passion, but you’ve got to learn when and where, and you’ve got to learn to use it to your advantage and not your disadvantage.”

Hill’s fire burned hot from the moment he caught his first football – or at least, from the moment he tried. Hill’s uncle, Doug Wallace, says his nephew didn’t know how to run routes or catch a pass as a Pop Warner receiver. But that didn’t stop him from diving for every overthrow.

“Right then, I knew that he was determined to be better,” Wallace said.

So determined, in fact, that Wallace could see the disappointment when Hill made mistakes. Early in Hill’s high school career, he would drop his head or grab his helmet if he dropped a pass or got beat on a route.

“Take a couple breaths,” Wallace would say. “Get back on track. Be positive.”

Cameron Duke, the football coach at Orlando Edgewater High School, learned about Hill’s spirit during Hill’s sophomore season, specifically toward the end of Edgewater’s state semifinal game. The Eagles beat Riverside 41-7, but Hill never stopped sprinting, fighting, competing, “even as the game was out of reach,” Duke said. “I’ll never forget that.”

Duke always encouraged Hill to play with personality – “I’d rather say ‘woah’ than ‘don’t,’” Duke said – but he also offered Hill the space to decompress if Hill needed it.

Hill’s passion never hurt the Eagles during a game, Duke said. But in practice, Duke’s staff coached hard. Hill practiced hard and with pride. “And he wasn’t used to people yelling at him,” Wallace said.

Sometimes, Duke said, Hill needed a break so he could “cool down.”

“Tommi would know when it was time,” Duke said. “We’d be chewing him out, but he knew we loved him. He always responded to that; he always bounced back.”

That resolve is part of the job description at cornerback, where you’re bound to get beat for big plays. As Chinander said Tuesday, they can’t afford to dwell on any outcome, be it a pick or pass interference.

Chinander loves when the Blackshirts celebrate their success. “It’s one of the best pieces of college football,” he said. But not if it hurts the defense, and again, the line is thin.

Once again, Chinander has guidance to offer.

“My advice to all those guys is, if you never want to be wrong, you celebrate with your teammates,” Chinander said. “... When you make it about yourself, it's usually wrong. That's when flags happen. That's when bad things happen. So as long as you're celebrating with another teammate, everything's gonna be good.”

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Nebraska defensive back Tommi Hill (0) looks back at a flag to see he was penalized for pass interference against North Dakota on Saturday at Memorial Stadium.

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