J-MAGIC

You don't get to sign three four-star quarterbacks in back-to-back-to-back years and keep them all. Simple as that.

National media and opposing fans (and Chris Heady weirdly) really having a field day with this one

9 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

I don't think you're in the minority.  I don't see anyone saying they are going to lose sleep either way.

I'm not going to be mad if they don't sign him or anything, but I would very much like to sign an incredible athlete from our backyard who recruiting services say would be our second-best commit!

3 minutes ago, Lightfighter214 said:

Thats just not true.

 

They were missing 33 players to include:

 

2 starting olineman (this adds to 4 of their top 7 oline being out)

Only had 4 defensive tackles available (including a starting dt)

Only 2 tight ends available (top 3 out)

 

They had shut down all activities for 8 days

There best wr also opted out

Alot of coaches were out prior

They didnt even have enough players to run a scout team.

 

I know some of us (myself included) have almost been hyper critical of frost,  but this was one of the worst loses the last 2 decades.

 

 

 

We finished 33rd in post-season SP+ and Minnesota finished 35th, so even teams. The COVID stuff hurt their depth so that gives them points, but we also had starters out so I don't see how that's super impactful. To call it one of the worst losses of the last two decades (or even worse than Illinois this year and Purdue/Colorado last year) is very overdramatic.

23 minutes ago, Undone said:

 

Ok, I buy that.

 

Still a good example of a game in my opinion where there doesn't seem to be any tangible "COVID excuses" that the 'skers can use for why we lost. It was down the stretch of the season, both teams had played several games at that point, etc., etc.

If we're gonna talk COVID excuses, Minnesota got three weeks off beforehand and we were playing our sixth conference game in a row. That seems like a much bigger factor than them having some backup defenders sitting out.

I mean, you don't have to have a cannon to be a good QB. McSorley was a great quarterback for PSU and I wouldn't say he has even a remotely good arm; he just made good decisions quickly, threw it accurately and was a good athlete who could hurt people with his legs. 

Based on the games, Adrian seems like the much-better option right now, but just because Luke was bad a freshman doesn't mean his QB career isn't salvageable. If our coaches think he should stay at QB, then I trust them. But I also think Luke should realize he can get on the field as a receiver right now and try to help the team while he waits to take over for Adrian.

16 hours ago, BlitzFirst said:

 

so if we just start winning suddenly, you'll stop questioning things right?  Until then, you're going to pick apart everything with supposition and guesswork based on a few soundbytes from the coaches?

 

This goes for everyone here...everyone seems to think that the coaches suck, they can't develop talent, and they can't fix anything.

 

I think people are creating a narrative of negativity and piling on.

Lotta people who were the loudest critics about dumb/meaningless stuff from our coaches are going to be the loudest cheerleaders if/when this thing turns around. 

I'm down with keeping him at QB long-term if our coaches, who see him every day, think he has a future there. But just based on the games it's very clear Adrian is the better option for next year and possibly the year after, so if he can't make a push this spring why would he not try to get on the field as a WR?

2 hours ago, Husker in WI said:

I imagine more will come out of this interview since they say it was "wide-ranging," but sounds like Frost was letting Lubick handle part of the playcalling duties and expects to spend more time working specifically with Adrian.

https://journalstar.com/sports/huskers/football/frost-lubick-shared-play-calling-duties-late-in-2020-plan-to-continue-doing-so/article_619084bf-0ff9-53e4-a3a5-c43c950698e4.html

Calling plays is always collaborative so I wouldn't make all that much of this. Lubick and Walters would have always had input into the play calls and situational responsibilities.

3 minutes ago, Husker in WI said:

 

True, but there were decisions made that led to him ending up in that position that he could control. I'm not saying slide necessarily (this one might have been right at the 1st down marker?), but not putting yourself in spots where you're being flipped or a defender has a clean shot at the ball can be done most of the time. Easier said than done for sure though.

This play was a close first down and the dive was necessary to get the first down. Both fumbles in that game I really wasn't that angry about. He had the ball high and tight on both and some combination of the sleeves and the defense making two good plays resulted in the fumbles. He wasn't Michael Vick'ing the ball or anything. The picks were both pretty egregious though.  

If he cleans up the fumbles and we give him receivers who can get open, a line that can consistently pass pro/snap him the ball, and backs who can take the rushing burden off of him, I truly think Adrian is an all-conference quarterback. He is extremely talented.

4 minutes ago, Decked said:

Man some of the short/intermediate accuracy on the right is no bueno. I guess I’m shocked on the deep balls. Not that he can’t make them but it seemed there was little opportunity this year. Again, due to a few factors IMO. One of those being we had almost 0 deep threats. 

Sorry, that chart was from after the 2019 season. I don't believe the 2020 has been released, but at least from the eye test I'm assuming the underneath numbers improved this year.

We were the only P5 school to offer him as a QB, correct? I can't imagine that's changed with what he's put on film.

4 minutes ago, Gorillahawk said:

 

I would think that if Frost was honest with LM then he's probably gone. That's super frustrating because I think his ceiling is considerably higher as a WR then a QB. I could see him having a dynamic impact similar to Wandale had the last two years if he'd make the switch.

If he told Luke, "Hey, we gave you an honest-to-god shot at quarterback, but it's not working out and we could really use you contributing to this team at another position where we think you could really excel" and Luke bails, then that's not really on Frost and I'm not that mad. It will still deeply suck, but you have to be able to have honest convos with players about where they stand for better or worse.

16 hours ago, Decked said:

Another FCS 1,000 yard WR & Henry To’oto’o LB from Tenn entered the portal. Henry is gonna be an NFL LB. Idc if we don’t need another ILB you try and snag him and move Reimer or Heinrich to OLB if you need to. 

To'oto'o' is one of the best linebackers in the country. If he wants to come here I'll buy him a car (just kidding)

2 hours ago, Husker in WI said:

 

Mitch Sherman at The Athletic had an interview with Rutledge after he was let go. He did say a lot of the struggles were out of his control, but that he would probably let the ST analyst go as well were he in Frost's position. He didn't really expand on the out of his control other than Cerni's injury and injuries to "other guys who were critical to what we wanted to be." It's a paid site so I'm not going to pull more quotes, but he kinda goes all over the place. Didn't mind the system we had with him being an analyst, but does advocate for it being a staff position. He was pretty vague all around, so you can probably read into it however you want - did mention Frost was consumed by the offense though, not in ST meetings. Overall he wasn't burning any bridges but seemed relatively unhappy with his stuff translating to the field. As anyone with a sense of pride in their ST work would be. 

I thought the most interesting part of the Sherman interview was Rutledge basically saying that Cerni and some other injuries/departures drastically affected how they were doing on ST. What position guys got hurt that would have made that big of an impact?

1 hour ago, BigRedBuster said:

I guess I have a problem believing Frost doesn't take ST seriously.  He was on teams here where TO preached how important they are and he idolizes TO.  

 

These guys also have played special teams in MS and HS.  The concept isn't rocket science.  I keep thinking the problem with coverages is somehow either who we have on the units or how they are told to play it.  But, this has been a major problem since even before Frost.

People who think our coaches don't care about special teams or aren't trying to improve them are clueless. These are a lot more difficult, complex and time-consuming problems to fix than just telling your punt returner to make sure he catches the ball, but for some reason fans think systemic and long-running problems get fixed by snapping your fingers. It's fair to criticize them for certain aspects of the ST's performance, but these are problems of organization/talent/depth, not our coaches being like "let's not practice any punts this week, who care about that lol".

58 minutes ago, Husker in WI said:

Yeah, I'm not sure how much I buy the keep away argument for other big ten west defenses anymore. I definitely have used that argument, but Iowa and NW both faced 70+ plays per game which is more than average. Wisconsin this year only faced 59 per game, so maybe it applies there. But regardless, they were 3 of the top 5 P5 defenses in yards per play allowed. And some of the small numbers of plays defended isn't keep away - if you force them into 3 and outs you won't face many plays. 

 

I guess my point is offensive scheme isn't hurting our defense, and I no longer buy the argument that to field an elite defense we need an offensive shift. We faced the same number of plays as Iowa, fewer than NW. We don't need ball control, we do need offense and special teams not giving away tons of field position though. 

When you're consistently outgaining teams and losing, that would point to your main systems being fine to even good, but needing to improve on the "hidden stats" like field position, turnovers, red zone scoring, etc., which I think most fans would agree we've been really bad at under Frost. That's why I really don't think we're as far away or struggling as much as people here like to say we are. Young teams are bad at that stuff and improve with experience. We've had young teams that are about to turn into veteran teams. And then hopefully we are able to "stay old" after that. 

46 minutes ago, hunter49 said:

 

the way it is going now, it's simply not working.

I'm not disputing that we need to do something different with gameday special teams. But that doesn't mean Frost needs to be the guy in the huddle telling them which kickoff coverage to run or whatever. We didn't hire Frost to be a CEO coach; we hired him because he is a great offensive mind and that's what we should want him to be spending a majority of his time working on. He should be directing big-picture stuff with defense and special teams during the week, but he doesn't need to be involved with their minutiae on gameday and should be delegating that to competent assistants. Special teams need better organization/assistant performance on gameday, not a head coach sacrificing his best skill to make a performative point. Mecole drops a punt every week but Chiefs fans aren't like, "I think Andy Reid should stop calling plays and go tell the punt returner to make sure he catches the ball." You hire head coaches for specific attributes and you should want them utilizing those attributes as much as they possibly can.

From a family perspective he had to do what he had to do and that's perfectly understandable. I do think from a football perspective he is going to regret this though. 

4 minutes ago, Hilltop said:

I think this really indicates him leaving was much more about family than his utilization.  If his priority was to get better touches, there were several schools that could have highlighted his abilities much better than Kentucky within a few hours of home.   

Kentucky is one of the few P5 schools he could have gone to that had a worse passing offense than us. 

Why are so many of our fans obsessed with getting our coach to stop doing the thing he's best at. He's regarded as one of the best playcallers in cfb by people who know what they're talking about. We should want him to call plays!

Every offense other than, like the single-wing needs WRs of all sizes and skillsets to succeed. Frost has used big wideouts and small wideouts equally at every stop he's been. Big, physical wideouts who can win one-on-one downfield, block well and body people in the redzone were a hole in our roster so they have been the priority as of late, and it was probably assumed that Wandale would be the primary Duck-R for the next two years. Acting like this is indicative of a big change in strategy is reading too much into a small sample. 

17 hours ago, HuskerNation1 said:

With all the guys returning on defense, that is a very positive sign that these players believe in the defensive staff AND philosophy which is amazing news.  I think the defense could be the best we have seen since the Pelini days (not 2009 good but potentially 2010 or 2011 good.

 

Now, with key departures on offense, and the decision by some seniors to not return, this is a sign that there need to be some pretty dramatic changes on that side of the ball.  If players felt positive about where the offense was headed, they would likely be making similar decisions to return.  I really hope Frost and Lubick take a hard look at what's not working and are willing to completely scrap those portions of the playbook. The offense needs an identity to build around, and I have yet to see what that identify might be in the Frost system.  

You can definitely say that about Wandale leaving. But beyond that we're losing two linemen who were here for four and five years and probably both have a good shot to be drafted, an OK tight end who had been passed on the depth chart, and a 24-year-old running back. They would be nice to have back but I don't see how any of those cases are an indictment of Frost or his system or a sign we need change.