**2018 Husker Previews: The Athletic - Nebraska football welcomes home Scott Frost"

[Saunders]

State of the Program: Nebraska football welcomes home Scott Frost

When Mick Stoltenberg looked up during practices this spring, the Nebraska senior defensive tackle could see an almost angelic figure watching over him and his teammates.

There was Tom Osborne, the 81-year-old coaching legend, quietly taking it all in from balcony seats overlooking the indoor practice field as his disciple, Scott Frost, coached up the Cornhuskers. For Stoltenberg, a Nebraska native from nearby Gretna, it was an exciting reminder that something special is happening here.

“It’s the coolest,” Stoltenberg said. “He won’t come down. He sits up in the balcony. It’s like he’s watching over us. It’s almost like he’s this glowing figure.”

The presence of Nebraska’s past greatness is very much felt in Lincoln this spring now that Frost has come home. The new head coach is reviving and modernizing so much of what Osborne mastered to make Nebraska a powerhouse. He sees fundamental areas – strength training, nutrition, the walk-on program – where the Huskers have ceded their advantages and their edge over time.

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Our first major Husker preview of the season! Yes, The Athletic requires a subscription, but considering that most of the major outlets fired all their journalists (and replaced them with clickbait writers) I totally think it's worth the $30 a year cost for real writing. 

 

[Saunders]

That's depressing...

 

[Mavric]

That's depressing...

Especially since it really wasn't that hard to see it coming.  If you took off your scarlet-colored glasses and took an honest look.

 

[Nebfanatic]

That's depressing...

Is recruiting related to performance in that way though? Recruits can't play for you the year they are recruited. We surely underperformed, but the talent is getting better according to recruiting rankings and that should translate into success 2 or 3 years from now.

 

[brophog]

Is recruiting related to performance in that way though? Recruits can't play for you the year they are recruited. We surely underperformed, but the talent is getting better according to recruiting rankings and that should translate into success 2 or 3 years from now.

Across major college football, players are playing at a younger age. They're more ready coming out of high school, they're looking to play earlier and if they don't, they're looking to transfer. So that delta you're talking about is decreasing.

Frost's first class will make an immediate impact, for better or worse, based on incoming ability, fit, and need. It'll be interesting to see how his preferences towards early playing time change as he gets a program in year 5+.

 

[Mierin]

That's depressing...

I think it's the opposite of depressing. It means there is talent there for a good coach to work with. It's only depressing when thinking about the past.

 

[Nebfanatic]

Across major college football, players are playing at a younger age. They're more ready coming out of high school, they're looking to play earlier and if they don't, they're looking to transfer. So that delta you're talking about is decreasing.

Frost's first class will make an immediate impact, for better or worse, based on incoming ability, fit, and need. It'll be interesting to see how his preferences towards early playing time change as he gets a program in year 5+.

But even to that point the best talent is the most recent according to the graph so theoretically this team is positioned well to succee

But my point is more that this years 2 data points really have zero correlation. This years recruiting had no effect to on field performance. Really it should correlate the opposite way as in a bad product on the field should result in poor recruiting but luckily we hired Frost and that offset the bad season.

 

[jsneb83]

Is recruiting related to performance in that way though? Recruits can't play for you the year they are recruited. We surely underperformed, but the talent is getting better according to recruiting rankings and that should translate into success 2 or 3 years from now.

When it says four-your recruiting, I believe they are talking about the average ranking of the four years before that year

 

[Mavric]

I think people were hopeful instead of dishonest or wearing scarlet-colored glasses.

I was concerned with Riley's career record prior to him coming to Nebraska but I was also hopeful that he would live up to his reputation of doing more with less. That didn't happen and now we have Scott Frost as our head coach.

I agree that the two are closely-related and sometimes hard to tell apart.

But there were plenty of warning signs that people ignored/dismissed because they didn't want to believe them - they just need more time, they just need better recruits, Purdue has more talent than we do, they just need their own quarterback, Langsdorf doesn't really want to throw the ball that much, it's the offensive line's fault that we can't run the ball better, etc., etc., etc.

 

[Mavric]

Here's another point of view.

Personally, when we hire a new coach I want him and his staff to work out. I would have much rather seen Riley and Co. work out here at NU than have to fire him and go through another coaching search and transition. This doesn't mean I don't recognize that the offensive line is having serious issues or that I don't think that needs fixing. It certainly did need fixing and I'll wager we see some significant improvement in that unit this year.

Now that we have Frost as our coach I am still hopeful that things will work out. I expect him to fix problems as they crop up, no differently than I expected Riley to do. Except...Riley didn't fix problems, it seems he ignored them and that's why he's no longer here.

I don't know that's another point of view.  I don't know that really anyone wanted Riley to fail.  But there were reasons to be skeptical from the start and it didn't take long for legitimate questions to start showing up on the field.

That doesn't make anyone wrong for being (overly) optimistic but it also doesn't mean that people who were pointing out problems early on were just wanting him to fail.

 

[TheSker]

I was concerned with Riley's career record prior to him coming to Nebraska but I was also hopeful that he would live up to his reputation of doing more with less.

Nebraska is one of the "haves" in college football.  There was never a need to do more with less at Nebraska.

 

[Jeremy]

Nebraska is one of the "haves" in college football.  There was never a need to do more with less at Nebraska.

I don't know about that, at least recruiting-wise. The Nebraska coaching staff, whoever they may be, has to recruit all over the country, and most other blue-bloods don't have to do that. Heck, Schnellenburger made Miami a force simply by recruiting inner-city Miami, we can't do anything remotely close to that, considering we had guys from Cali, Florida, and New Jersey on the champion 94 squad. 

 

[Mierin]

Nebraska is one of the "haves" in college football.  There was never a need to do more with less at Nebraska.

We have money and facilities and history, which help us entice some good players to come here, but Nebraska will likely never compete with Ohio State or even Penn State in recruiting. We've needed to do more with less for about 20 years now, if our goal is to win conference and national champioships. The teams that have won national championships the last 10-20 years have almost all recruited a lot better than Nebraska.

We do need someone who can do more with less, and I think Frost can do that.

 

[TheSker]

I don't know about that, at least recruiting-wise. The Nebraska coaching staff, whoever they may be, has to recruit all over the country, and most other blue-bloods don't have to do that. Heck, Schnellenburger made Miami a force simply by recruiting inner-city Miami, we can't do anything remotely close to that, considering we had guys from Cali, Florida, and New Jersey on the champion 94 squad. 

The good news is.....

We have the resources to recruit all over the country.  Frost went from Florida to California to sign A Martinez.

That is not doing more with less.

 

[RedDenver]

I don't know that's another point of view.  I don't know that really anyone wanted Riley to fail.  But there were reasons to be skeptical from the start and it didn't take long for legitimate questions to start showing up on the field.

That doesn't make anyone wrong for being (overly) optimistic but it also doesn't mean that people who were pointing out problems early on were just wanting him to fail.

But you can find reasons to be skeptical of any hire, especially in hindsight. There were a lot of reasons to think Osborne might not be a good HC, and if he'd been fired in the mid 70's then everyone who had been skeptical could say, "See? I told you this wouldn't work out."