First-Year Coaching Grades

[Toe]

I'm with @junior4949, if 'incomplete' were an option, I'd give him that.

 

4 hours ago, Mavric said:

Mullen at Florida (9-3) got an A, Jimbo (aTm, 8-4) got an A-, and Joe Moorhead at Mississippi State (8-4) got a B+ as the only three Power 5 coaches to get a better grade than Frost.

 

You missed Herm Edwards (B+).

[NebraskaHarry]

I'm grading Frost on a Pass/Fail grading system. 

 

PASSED

[Husker from Kansas]

I think a solid B. He did a great job of changing the culture, and idk if we realize how big of a job that has been. And lets not forget he could easily have an A, 5 of the games we lost were by by 5 or less points. We win those games, we finished ranked and probably start next year in the top 15. This guy and his staff have done a hell of a job, and we will see the benefits of it soon

[Nebfanatic]

16 hours ago, Toe said:

I'm with @junior4949, if 'incomplete' were an option, I'd give him that.

 

 

You missed Herm Edwards (B+).

I think everyone is trying to forget Herm. That was a head scratcher and pretty much everybody thought he was going to be terrible but he has shut people up so far. It will be interesting to see how he can develop that program.

[StPaulHusker]

I gave him a C+.  I think he scored an F in the first half as the team was finding ways to lose and you can't overlook the worst start in the history of the program.  He gets an A- for the 2nd half of the season for some very dominating wins and a couple of close losses that we looked competitive.  So the average is C+

[RedDenver]

51 minutes ago, StPaulHusker said:

I gave him a C+.  I think he scored an F in the first half as the team was finding ways to lose and you can't overlook the worst start in the history of the program.  He gets an A- for the 2nd half of the season for some very dominating wins and a couple of close losses that we looked competitive.  So the average is C+

I also gave him a C+ for the same reasons.

[Enhance]

I did a C+ myself. I can't penalize him too much for taking over one of the least talented and most culture-warped Husker programs of the last 20 years, but it's also tough for me to say a coach earned a B when his team only won four games, regardless of how/when those games happened.

 

23 hours ago, Landlord said:

Their grading curve seems really inflated. Mullen and Jimbo's jobs in year 1 don't constitute an 'A' ranking in my idea of how it should work. If Mullen would have gone 11-1, would that still have been an A? 

 

I agree that it's a bit weird. I'd have to put Mullen around a B or B+. Winning two more games would've earned him an A-range grade, but #9wins? Only we can be the champions of such a statistic!

[DefenderAO]

I gave a B. His biggest prio needed to be change the culture. He did that. Emphatically. 

 

Next is talent development and recruiting. Current players did improve some and he’s building a good pipeline. 

 

Then scheme. There were some clock management issues, some questionable play calls on O and D, curious ST gaffs, but he also showed ability to adjust. 

 

I’m an A+ on hope and confidence for the future. Scott is the best man for this job by a mile. 

[Xmas32]

3 hours ago, Nebfanatic said:

I think everyone is trying to forget Herm. That was a head scratcher and pretty much everybody thought he was going to be terrible but he has shut people up so far. It will be interesting to see how he can develop that program.

 

Agreed he's made me eat crow.  I want to see how he does post Manny Wilkins/N'Keal Henry.

[Mavric]

I went with B

 

Obviously the record isn't great.  But we not only played well enough to win several more games, we really outplayed several opponents for the vast majority of games only to screw something up at the end to lose it.  Which - to me - means we were better than our record showed.  If you change any one of several plays we beat both Colorado and Northwestern.  If either Martinez doesn't get hurt, Gebbia doesn't leave or (possibly) UCF doesn't hold up Vedral's waiver request, we probably beat Troy.  None of that takes any better coaching job, just some better luck and we could easily be 7-5. 

 

We were pretty competitive against everyone except Michigan, that's a vast improvement.

 

Our offense was light-years better over last year.

 

The defense was far from great but was still significantly improved from last year.

 

That's a lot of progress in 11 months.

[huskerfan333157]

I go with a b+.  I predicted 6-6 due to our lack of talent on the defensive side of the ball and how complex Frost' s scheme is to grasp.  I saw major improvements in all 3 phases of the game as the season progressed.  We, my friends, are on the right track.

[4skers89]

https://247sports.com/college/nebraska/Article/Nebraska-athletic-director-Bill-Moos-overview-of-Scott-Frosts-first-season-leading-Husker-football-program-125584740/

 

Moos didn’t offer a grade but if he had I think it would be

 

 

Also, for the fans that have visions of CCG next year dancing in their heads

 

"As we go on through the Scott Frost era, I see us doing nothing but continually getting better each year. And I'll think we'll see it next year. But within Year 3 or 4, we should be in the conversation for conference championships and bowl games that are higher tier."

[Landlord]

21 hours ago, Mavric said:

I went with B

 

Obviously the record isn't great.  But we not only played well enough to win several more games, we really outplayed several opponents for the vast majority of games only to screw something up at the end to lose it.  Which - to me - means we were better than our record showed.  If you change any one of several plays we beat both Colorado and Northwestern.  If either Martinez doesn't get hurt, Gebbia doesn't leave or (possibly) UCF doesn't hold up Vedral's waiver request, we probably beat Troy.  None of that takes any better coaching job, just some better luck and we could easily be 7-5. 

 

We were pretty competitive against everyone except Michigan, that's a vast improvement.

 

Our offense was light-years better over last year.

 

The defense was far from great but was still significantly improved from last year.

 

That's a lot of progress in 11 months.

 

 

 

What do you suppose you would have graded Riley's first year?

[Mavric]

2 minutes ago, Landlord said:

What do you suppose you would have graded Riley's first year?

 

I would like to say I would have said D but if I was completely honest probably F.

 

Our schemes were just terrible.  I was at the BYU game and I could tell in the first half that Banker's defense wasn't going to work.  And, while Langs passing game was OK it was obvious that he had no clue how to develop a running game.

 

Since I'm sure you're wanting me to compare to this year, the schemes we are putting into place are significantly better.  I've thought this offense would be a perfect fit for Nebraska since Chip Kelly was running it at Oregon - long before Frost was on the radar as a possible head coach.  It lessens the need for elite offensive linemen, allows you to take guys who are athletes and let them make plays and avoids having to compete with the USCs, Notre Dames, Miamis, Alabamas, Florida States, etc for top-shelf pro-style QBs (though some of those have also moved away from that over the years).  Langs just had no feel for play-calling and barely cared about the running game.  On a yards per play basis, Langs was basically even with our offense from the year before (slightly down but close).  He got worse from there but that wouldn't affect the 2015 grade.  On the other hand, Frost got us 0.72 YPP better than the previous year which moved us up 42 spots in the national rankings.  And that was using most all the same guys Langs had the year before - except for QB but Langs was supposed to have "his" QB last year too.

 

And, like I said, it was obvious that Banker's defense was bad.  He took a team with Chris Jones, Maliek Collins, Vincent Valentine, Josh Banderas, and Nathan Gerry - all of whom got at least a decent look in the NFL - and turned it into the #92 defense in the country (YPP) while facing one of the worst set of offensive opponents we've seen in the last 10 years.  I don't know if the current defense/coordinator is the answer but Banker made us 0.75 yards per play worse than the year before he got here.  Chinander got 0.64 yards better than the year before.

[Landlord]

24 minutes ago, Mavric said:

 

I would like to say I would have said D but if I was completely honest probably F.

 

Our schemes were just terrible.  I was at the BYU game and I could tell in the first half that Banker's defense wasn't going to work.  And, while Langs passing game was OK it was obvious that he had no clue how to develop a running game.

 

Since I'm sure you're wanting me to compare to this year, the schemes we are putting into place are significantly better.  I've thought this offense would be a perfect fit for Nebraska since Chip Kelly was running it at Oregon - long before Frost was on the radar as a possible head coach.  It lessens the need for elite offensive linemen, allows you to take guys who are athletes and let them make plays and avoids having to compete with the USCs, Notre Dames, Miamis, Alabamas, Florida States, etc for top-shelf pro-style QBs (though some of those have also moved away from that over the years).  Langs just had no feel for play-calling and barely cared about the running game.  On a yards per play basis, Langs was basically even with our offense from the year before (slightly down but close).  He got worse from there but that wouldn't affect the 2015 grade.  On the other hand, Frost got us 0.72 YPP better than the previous year which moved us up 42 spots in the national rankings.  And that was using most all the same guys Langs had the year before - except for QB but Langs was supposed to have "his" QB last year too.

 

And, like I said, it was obvious that Banker's defense was bad.  He took a team with Chris Jones, Maliek Collins, Vincent Valentine, Josh Banderas, and Nathan Gerry - all of whom got at least a decent look in the NFL - and turned it into the #92 defense in the country (YPP) while facing one of the worst set of offensive opponents we've seen in the last 10 years.  I don't know if the current defense/coordinator is the answer but Banker made us 0.75 yards per play worse than the year before he got here.  Chinander got 0.64 yards better than the year before.

 

 

 

This is a very big (and accurate, so don't hear me wrong) focus on schemes and proficiency, which is good, but your arguments in support of Frost have disappeared when examining Riley. 

 

Obviously Riley's record wasn't great. Like this year. But we played well enough to win several more games. Like this year. Which - to many at the time, at least - meant we were better than our record showed. If you change any one of several plays we could've beat BYU, Miami, Illinois, Wisconsin, Northwestern, and Iowa. None of that takes any better coaching job, just some better luck and we could easily be anywhere from 7-6 to 11-2.

 

We were pretty competitive against everyone except Purdue (lol)

 

So the results and the context of the W-L results were pretty damn close to the same. So a somewhat worse defense and a very much improved offense is the main distinction between a B and an F grade? Of course context matters, but there was no reason for us to only win 4 games this season, especially if our schemes were better and our coaches more competent and that deserves...something less than a B grade imo.

 

I just don't see any way that a 4 win season could or should ever be graded as a B performance. We could win TEN more games next year and that would only be an increase of a letter grade and a half? Also I imagine everyone giving B grades would have also given B grades for this season if we would've won 7-8 games.