Undone

Dawson & Becton are doing considerably better with special teams at this point over where we were at this point last season - although that isn't saying a lot. I would try to shuffle somebody down to the analyst role and bring in a legit special teams guy. Greg Austin is the focal point of this whole thing though, IMO.

Just now reading through this whole thread. It does deserve to be pointed out that Frost did fire two of his guys after year 2. So it's not like he doesn't have the b***s to fire people. And I really doubt it was Moos that tipped Frost off that Walters & Dewitt were dead weight. The big questions heading into next season are: 1. Can Greg Austin do better than what he's brought to the table the last two years? 2. Will special teams be completely sorted out by game 1 of next year? I think Lubick is doing just fine, and Chinander is also doing just fine. We're doing well at tight end & receivers, also. The coaching question marks are really the two main points above, IMO.

I don't see a problem with the way Frost is composing himself and leading as a head coach just in general. I don't see him melting down under the pressure, be it during games or outside of games. I still see him having the confidence and drive to continue to get it done. The biggest potential problem I see is that I'm not sure he is objective enough about what is actually wrong. Specifically: 1. His offensive staff hasn't been good enough at developing offensive linemen. 2. He never got a special teams coaching situation sorted out at the beginning of his time here. I think he needs one more year, but I cringe at the idea of seeing these same problems happen again next year. He has to go 7-5 next season or he gets canned. Even 6-6 isn't good enough next year.

I don't enjoy watching the team play anymore. It's stressful, not fun. It's really only a fun feeling at kickoff when we're playing a Fordham or a Buffalo. When the defense has an awesome game, the offense can't get it going (Michigan State). When the offense gets it going, the defense gives out (Michigan). Then you have those games where we just look like a Sun Belt team (Illinois, Minnesota). There's nothing fun or exciting about Husker football when the team can't even go .500. The close wins against good teams meant more for me when the only real blown game we had against mediocre competition was just the Illinois game, but after the Minnesota game those close games don't mean jack. Our team sucks and there's no compelling argument otherwise unless we win 3 out of the next 4.

What did or didn't happen in years 1-3 are starting to matter less and less to me right now. For me it just seems like Frost didn't get this team ready to be as competitive as they should have been across spring ball & fall camp for this season. I don't really care all that much about what evidence there is that we were well prepared because of how we played against Oklahoma & Michigan; we looked terrible against Illinois and that game is costing us big right now. We then came into the Minnesota game also looking unprepared and almost like we weren't there to win the game (on offense at least). Something has been wrong on offense since the start of the season and it just isn't getting fixed. It probably starts with Greg Austin, but I can't say that I'm 100% sure what it is exactly...

It was just a drive that was hard to watch. Only way we look much worse on that first series is if Martinez would have given up a strip sack or a huge fumble. It's also hard for me to buy a narrative that this line can't be setup correctly unless Prochazka is in there. We blew another entirely winnable game and as I said in another post, I really thought they were going to blow us out heading into halftime.

If Frost doesn't get fired after this season, he needs to be canned if he can't go 7-5 next season. Anything less than 7-5 next year is completely unacceptable. He's got to figure out what it is that gets his offense into a place where they're "off" so often in the first 1.5 quarters. The special teams stuff is largely fixed from where it was a year ago. But we're still a 5-7 dumpster fire. 7-5 next year or he doesn't deserve to step foot onto campus as a member of this program's staff.

Maybe the third & long was the one where the ball went through Oliver Martin's hands? I maybe remembered the third down play incorrectly in that post.

Bottom line is that Frost's team has failed over and over inside the 5 yard line since the 2019 season. He just isn't getting it figured out. You've got Yant, Morrison, Stepp, & Scott. Get your team in a mindset where they want to play to win the game. Get your offensive line in a place where they're coached the right technique to execute this situation. Over and over - and you saw this with the special team stuff that happened during the first half of the season - it's just like, it can't be as hard as he's making it.

So, Frost normally scripts his first drive. We run three plays that are not running back handoffs. First play, Martinez's accuracy is off on the pass play. I believe the second play was a short side option play? Third & long play, I remember Toure had maybe a step of separation but again, Martinez was off. And then it just felt like the game was actually over after their offense took the field after we punted. I wonder if Scott was overthinking that first half. Did he think "they're really stout up front and Prochazka's out, so we'll make them think we're going to just hand it off but then we'll throw" ? I just didn't understand that. That game had blowout all over it. If Minnesota hadn't started turning the ball over it probably would have been a three score loss.

A day or two before the Northwestern game in the prediction thread for that week I had said "Can we even score 30 points in a conference game?" Then we hung 56 on the wildcats. Probably would have hit 70 if Martinez had played every snap. Then we scored 29 against one of the better defenses in the country. If we put up 30 in this game it's a win. It's probably a win either way, but especially if we crack 30.

Yeah, I do think we were worse than we really knew because of some of the personnel. But I also believe firmly that the 2017 UCF team wouldn't have gone undefeated in the B1G West (regardless of their miracle win against Auburn in their bowl game). The competition we face, especially when you factor in the brutal cross-divisional scheduling we constantly get, is something that a lot of fans didn't really seem to factor in there.

Can't remember if I posted this already or not. I personally only fully saw in hindsight the lack of talent and more specifically player development from the Riley players after we had completed the 2019 season. There were two big things for me: There were two linebackers (that we won't name) that were just flat out bad players. Both of them had graduated by the end of 2019 season. Because Riley had practically abandoned the strength & conditioning program, guys like Daniels & Stille just weren't nearly as strong as they needed to be to compete in this conference. But, we then had remedied that second bullet point in my opinion by the start of the 2020 season. And guys like Reimer, Henrich, etc. fixed the first problem. Combine that with added depth at all positions and some more talent at the CB position along with solid coaching all around and you have what we see now. Chinander gets the credit - and deserves to for sure - but a lot of pieces went into fixing the problems that Banker/Diaco left us with. This was a 4-5 year rebuild from the start. A lot of people - myself included - were just really impatient during those first two years.

Totally agree and have felt this way for years. You're watching a sport where big sweaty men try to slam each other into the ground; the whole "nicest fans in college football" thing doesn't put points on the board so who gives a ****?

Yep. This is why complaining about play calling on one single, failed play is typically lazy fan stuff; it's low hanging fruit that is so easy to have as a go-to. Weak side option on 3rd & 7 would have sounded dumb to fans of other teams circa 1993 and also today, but if everybody makes their block it works. I will say that while Martinez is in my opinion the best player on our entire football team, preferably I think on that play late in the 4th quarter against UM you really want a guy like Yant taking the handoff there. The issue is that they know what's coming in that scenario.