"Nothing to me that's easy is interesting," he says. "It needs to be hard."
His actions back his words. When Scott Frost asked him to become Central Florida's defensive coordinator in 2016 — Chinander's first-ever go-round as a DC — the Knights were coming off an 0-12 season. You know how that story turned out.
As Nebraska's first-year defensive coordinator, the 38-year-old Chinander remains in the early stages of his life as a coordinator. Yet he enthusiastically leaped head-first into the Big Ten, the nation's best coaching conference. That qualifies as a difficult challenge.
Especially at a school that in 2017 ranked last among Big Ten teams in total defense.