Undone

That is terribly vague, but I do appreciate your input. It's just interesting because @El Diaco said: I watch highlights of UCF games, and I see a very similar offense. I was told profusely in a different thread that there are many, many differences. I'd like to hear what they are.

ROFL. So good.

I mean this genuinely: Can someone list out the nuances between the offense that Frost helped to coach when he was at Oregon and what Frost does now? One poster had mentioned in another thread that there was less zone blocking and more lineman pulling when run blocking. Anything else?

"jessica" knows all about Scott and Scott's wife's plans for a family. Simply amazing. Would you start at $5M for a base for any other coaches, jessica?

This thread is so great. Ah, so you've heard we'll be paying $4M/year?

I don't know that this would be accurate - but - I totally agree that I would love to build a time machine and have taken Frost over Riley, knowing what we know now.

Yes, and we have such a proven track record of being willing to pony up big cash for a good coach, don't we?

In hindsight, we absolutely should have hired him three years ago. Absolutely. Almost painful to think about how much better that probably would have been. But again...three years ago his resume wasn't even better than Bo's was in 2007 when Osborne brought Bo in. It just wasn't. I'm not saying that a comparison to Bo's resume is any kind of extremely important benchmark but there honestly wasn't any indication three years ago that he was ready to take over one of the most storied programs in college football history even though he is Scott Frost.

+1 for the comedy gold. I lol'd.

Hayseed - Your little emotional outburst is so cute. I'm sure that feels good to accuse someone of being "Riley's biggest fan" when you disagree with a post. I wanted Riley gone after the Rutgers game. His two coordinators and offensive line coach aren't good enough and our talent isn't being developed.

If memory serves, Taylor Martinez was not recruited as a quarterback by any major Power 5 schools. I seem to recall UCLA recruiting him as an "athlete." I could be missing your point but I probably wouldn't put Martinez on the same level as Mayfield, Manziel, & Mariota. The zone read offense is kind of a feast or famine scheme when your dual threat quarterback isn't exactly much of a *threat* when throwing the ball. I remember so many times with Martinez & Armstrong where on first down, when the run option was called, our line would not hold up and then we're at 2nd & 12. Then it's 3rd & long, and your QB just doesn't have the tools to be the guy to sit in the pocket in the shotgun and be expected to throw well. That does not describe Mayfield, Manziel, & Mariota. But it's possible that the final product for us has a better chance at being its best when we're going with the run/pass option scheme. I mean, just look at how much better our offense was statistically when Riley & Langsdorf were coaching Bo's offensive players in the zone read versus what we have now. Obviously there's a marked difference.

Ah, possibly. @zoogs - What did you mean when you said:

Riley has fired a bunch of dudes on the defensive side of the ball to try to improve his program. He hasn't made similar changes on offense to improve the product. What part of that doesn't make sense? *Edited for a typo

Riley has taken strides to build the necessary support staff to a large extent. He's gotten the process rolling with the changes he's made on the defensive side of the ball. But his offensive line coach seems to have been a pretty big hindrance. Would he have made more changes at the end of this season if we wind up going 6-6? Maybe. And maybe the university administration got wind of conversations he had with Eichorst over the last few months in which Riley made it clear that he would not. Those are the types of things that get an AD and head coach fired. Pure speculation on my part, pure speculation. But Riley has a long ways to go before his supporting cast is developing talent to the extent that we're able to compete even just with Wisconsin and Iowa. How long would we have given him to make these changes at 64?

You're listing some very sound rhetorical descriptions of us all, yes. I think that the Riley hire was confusing in large part because of his age. How long would/should we be willing to give a guy that was 62 when his first game was played as head coach just to be competitive at winning the West division? It's a hard question to answer with a lot of specificity, but in my opinion it's not hard to ball park it. Riley's downfall was bringing in his 'average to bad' assistants. And this is not overly critical or condescending of him; he has now fired his secondary coach, his defensive line coach, and his defensive coordinator, correct? He had to - They weren't coaches that could take your team into the Top 10. They weren't even coaches that could take your team into the Top 25! Frost does make sense as the guy we'd *have to* be patient with.

zoogs, can you elaborate on what this fallout will be? Alabama hired six coaches in 10 years prior to brining in Saban (or was it five prior to Saban - I'd have to check for sure). This really is the new reality of college football.

I was waiting for someone to say this. Thank you. I totally agree. In yet, it's not the (completely unreasonable) trend that Osborne set us up for. If Frost is the guy to pay $4.0M+ per year, let's do it. He's the guy then. But look at what the teams who consistently play Top 10 football pay their coaches. You said it - You get what you pay for. Are we going to pony up the cash? Or, does our fan base just assume that Lincoln is sprinkled with fairy dust and Frost will just dash in here and be happy to be paid whatever we offer?

Given that our expectations will be for Frost to essentially take us back to playing Top 10 football within 3 seasons, I'd consider "a lower salary" to be in teh $3.5M - $4.0M range. As of 2016's numbers, James Franklin and Kirk Ferentz made $4.5M-ish and were the 10th & 11th highest paid coaches last years, respectively. So, with that as somewhat of a benchmark, what do you expect Frost to be paid?

You make a good argument, Ern. The upshot of bringing in Frost at a lower salary would be if we then have the budget to bring in some good coordinators. Doing that would also be very encouraging.

Ern - Nobody said $7M. Nobody in this thread has put any numbers up until you just did. Dabo makes $5.3M.

Agreed, and Rivals agrees as well. They put out an article this last week saying he's on the top of their list as the next up-and-comer to take over a Power 5 gig. I will be happy with Frost, but I still maintain that in 20 years our program has not done this - We have not ponied up huge money to bring in a head coach of a Power 5 school that had won or consistently competed for conference titles in the last 5-8 years. To me, this seems like the very first thing that we'd do, but Osborne didn't want it that way when he had his two opportunities to name a new head coach (Solich and Pelini).

We would "strike out" because they wouldn't leave their current gigs because we wouldn't offer them enough money, or we'd strike out because we don't have the funds to buy out their current contracts? Please answer that question. I know who your choices are, as I'm relatively confident that I know who you are.

This is the chicken s*** attitude that has put us where we're at. Our boosters have the money. If Frost is the best we can do, there's a very good chance he can do better than Riley but in my opinion we have to go big or go home.

I have now named two coaches two different times on this page of this thread - David Shaw and Mark Dantonio.

Pump the breaks on your straw men. I have never been a Riley fan. We all want the best coach available. It is not crazy in the slightest to believe that Frost is not the best guy we can get. If we get him, I'll still be very happy. Remember: We have to recruit from the warm-weather meccas to do this thing. The bigger the name, the more pull in recruiting. This is a very basic concept.