Enhance

We all get that tensions are a bit high and fans are a bit miserable right now, but personal attacks are against board rules. Attack the post, not the poster.

This is pretty much where I'm at. I don't think Frost is gone after this season, but it's a grim situation. The program is stuck in a perpetual losers purgatory. I think Frost stays one more year because of the contract, but it's fairly uncommon to a see a head coach start off this poorly and turn it around before the timer runs out.

It's really weird to me that discussions about Adrian usually turn into some weird seesaw-like balancing act of trying to prove he's better/worse than what we think. I guess it's only natural as fans, but man... Adrian has had some rough and spotty moments as Nebraska's starting quarterback. There's a lot of evidence to support that and it's not wrong to point it out. He's also had some really amazing moments and it's not wrong to point that out either. Right now, he's doing a lot of things right and that's deserving of a lot of praise. But I don't like the frequency in which the "well, if he had a better supporting cast..." argument comes up any time AM comes under criticism for mistakes he has made or games they lost. A better supporting cast would help any quarterback. I don't mean to disregard the argument entirely because it certainly has validity to it, but it just seems like some of us have a hard time accepting when AM hasn't been good.

Those are the best kind of sacks to see, and credit to Domann for positioning his body well on the tackle to avoid a penalty.

I'll absolutely count myself in that group, as well. I bought into the notion that the offense would not be the problem area. I think most of us did based on Frost's track record and history. It was a reasonable assumption to make between the two. If Frost goes, I doubt Chin would stay, but I do like what he's done.

I agree. I think Frost's history as a player is helping to control the way people talk about him. There's a decent chance a different coach would still be here in season four with these performances, but I think the word choice and overall tenor would be a lot different. You can tell there's a general hesitancy among a lot of folks in the way they talk about Frost. I think that's OK given his history here. But to your point, the evaluation process does ultimately need to be objective, and I think it will be. I think most people inside and outside the program understand what kind of needs to happen from here on out. MSU was the starting point for that and they failed. That was a pretty significant hit to Frost in more ways than one. Kind of like removing a pretty critical piece of the foundation he was left standing on.

I think we need to see how the season plays out before we try to make any ultimate determination about Frost. Things are definitely trending negatively, but I would like to address a few of the points made by the OP. 1) The fact is, this team is light years more competitive than it was 2 years ago. Yes and no. You can only make this argument if you want to look at very specific parts of the team, in which case this becomes a weak argument. And the W/L record suggests they're right where they've been all along. 2) But, he has shown over and over again that he will fix that. I don't see enough evidence to support this claim. Special teams overall has been a sore spot for four years. The offensive line has been arguably the weakest position group for four years. The running back room has been fairly inconsistent. Unacceptable penalties. The defense has certainly improved, but we also know that Chin is more responsible for that unit than Frost. I'm struggling to see evidence to support the notion that he has fixed these types of problems "over and over," because the more fair argument at the moment is that he hasn't shown that... because they continue to be problems. 3) And that is true, but St is looking to be a better team than we thought they were a month ago. While true, the tougher pill to swallow is that - once again - Nebraska looked the better team, particularly with the overall dominant defensive performance. Teams perform better and worse than their pre-season projections all the time. That's old hat. What matters is how you play against them. 4) I suppose if we meltdown and lose our way to the end, there may be no choice but to make a change, but we owe it to the program to let it play out. Ultimately, I agree with this. I've become fairly skeptical this year to the point that I don't think they're going to get much better than where they are. I think a best case scenario is bowl eligibility. Even winning four games will probably buy Frost another year. Finishing the season with only two or three wins will probably be a bit of a death sentence, even if the team is competitive in those games.

Good points/post. To the bolded, I agree. If I could redefine the problems I assign to Held, it would be the lack of consistency in the group and inability to develop a 'dude' back there. The o-line troubles are genuine concern worth noting, though.

This times 1,000%. Who knows what's happening there. Just look at Stepp who ran for 102 yards on 18 att. against Fordham, 20 yards on 9 att. against Buffalo, and didn't have a single carry against OU. Just when you think someone is making something of themselves, they disappear. That's been the theme almost every season under Frost. That, to me, is a coaching issue. The rumor mill swirling at the moment (according to Damon Benning) is that Held is 'under a lot of pressure' right now. He went on to say that there are two people either very close to or whom work closely with Held inside the program that are not very big fans of Held's. DB wouldn't go into much further detail but I definitely interpreted what he said as meaning Held knows he and his unit aren't getting it done. I don't think Held's seat is quite as hot as Austin's but it is definitely warm, and with good reason. Being considered one of the staff's best recruiters is great, but that unit has been consistently inconsistent for four seasons now.

As a lifelong Cubs fan, I can guarantee you one thing: Nebraska doesn't have bad luck. Being competitive and winning championships comes down to your leadership, coaches and players. You can fix S&C, which it looks like they've done. You can recruit good talent, which it looks like they've done. But, all the stuff that they're struggling with right now in year four (mental errors, lack of development in key position groups, penalties) mostly comes down to coaching. I think Damon Benning said it best this morning: if you can't fix the problems ailing your program, then you're either unknowing, unwilling or incapable. Eventually, time runs out on those folks.

Yeah I thought that OU seemed to have a talent advantage in most spots, but Nebraska didn't look physically outmatched or outgunned, and that was pretty important. In fact, I thought Nebraska looked like the more physical and aggressive team for good chunks of that game. I doubt OU runs into any other team like that on the Big 12 slate. At the end of the day, I think the key difference was that there were a lot of plays where OU's dude was just better than Nebraska's dude. The only way Nebraska was going to win that game was if their execution was at an all time high and hope that OU made mistakes, and unfortunately, neither of those things happened enough.

Fair question. I'm not really sure how Trev operates to be honest. I would hope most head coaches understand and realize the scope of their expectations. I know it can be incredibly difficult to fire a friend, but at some point, you can't stay hooked to the hip of a position coach whose unit consistently underperforms.

Maybe it's just a matter of semantics and superlatives, but I think ST is a mixed bag and I think you have to look at the severity of the mistakes in comparison to the successes. - Nebraska's FG/PAT unit left six points on the field and spotted OU two points directly... that's objectively a failing grade. - Punts were overall quite good. - The kickoff game was pretty good, though they did almost send one out of bounds. OU may have bailed them out but that's still a Nebraska screw up IMO. - There was one kick return where they didn't fair catch and only got the ball out to the 10-15 yard line. So if you're going to grade out "special teams" as a whole unit then you're probably only giving a C or D grade. If you want to go by individual unit, FG/PAT gets an F, punting probably an A, kickoff probably a B and kick returning probably a B.

I think S&C can be a difficult factor to evaluate. To a man, most of the o-line looks the part. And to my inexpert eye, it seems like the 1:1 battles they lose has more to do with bad technique and leverage than it does sheer strength. I do think Austin is probably on his way out after this season. I'm just not sure how you justify retaining him unless the o-line shows some kind of significant improvement the rest of the season. It's year four and we could easily argue that the offensive line has been the most inconsistent and underperforming position group in the Frost era. And that's just unacceptable as a B1G program with aspirations of competing for conference titles. If you have average to below average lines in the B1G then you're a bad program - full stop.

IMO missed tackles isn't very high on the list of things that's going to keep Nebraska out of a bowl game this season, so this statement feels like a significant stretch. Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the expectations of the teams we root for while unintentionally disregarding or ignoring the talent of the opposition. NU's defense could certainly be better, but OU's offense is pretty loaded talent wise. Lincoln Riley is one of the best offensive minds in the sport. We knew they would force NU's defense to make mistakes. I'd still argue that Nebraska's lack of a consistent pass rush is probably their great Achilles Heel at the moment.