Faith does weird stuff to us, as humans. Hope can make you do crazy, illogical stuff. It also holds us together. Keeps us going. It’s that little flicker of light when things get dark.
For Nebraska football, things have been pretty dark lately. Almost four years into the Scott Frost tenure, he and the Huskers don’t have much to show for it. Frost is 15-28 at NU, 19 of those losses being by one score or less.
Two Mondays ago, NU Athletic Director Trev Alberts announced Frost would be back in 2022. He’s taken a one million dollar pay cut, saw his buyout dip from 20 million dollars to 7.5 million and cut bait with four offensive coaches with two games to go.
For weeks and months, Frost’s future has been a topic of conversation. With Frost’s return in 2022, let’s explore a few aspects of this story that I think are going underexamined.
Nebraska Naivety
The Nebraska football program draws a lot of parallels to the traditional newspaper business. Once a stalwart in the world of college football, the seafloor has shifted beneath their feet. Similar to print journalism.
Traditional print journalism has sparked revolutions, blown the lid off corruption and has been a source of hard-working American truth-telling for a long time. It built monuments out of men. But at the dawn of the digital breakthrough, it’s been passed over. Advertising dollars, dwindling attention spans and political distrust have decimated print journalism.
For Husker football, it’s been less about advertising dollars and more about the rest of the world catching up to them. In the heyday, NU capitalized on two factors that aren’t available today: a cutting-edge strength program and the famed walk-on pipeline.
Husker Power - built by NU strength guru Boyd Epley, revolutionized powerlifting and football-specific exercise in the early 90s. A strength and power approach (plus a little something on the side) turned NU into a physically overpowering juggernaut. Bigger. Faster. Stronger. They had it all.
During that same time, NU found a loophole with roster size. They created an expansive walk-on program and had rosters that made other foes gasp. They had unparalleled depth. Those things combined made them a hellacious force on the field.
In 2021, those advantages have long dissipated. Everyone lifts heavy and is powerful. Every team has the same roster size. The advantages are gone and the disadvantages still remain: un-sexy location, lack of national HS football prominence in the area and most importantly — an unrealistic attachment to the past.
Husker fans hold on to the hope that they can get back there. They will admit it will be tough but there’s belief they can win national titles and reach that level of dominance again. Just get the coach right, the right talent, the incestuous process of bringing back former Husker players who understand the Nebraska way.
Like the newspaper business, the landscape shifted right from beneath their feet. They aren’t getting it back. No amount of NIL money, a Husker hero head coach or local talent gets them back there. This misguided thinking has set the stage for what’s transpired since the Tom Osborne era. It’s the hard truth, but Husker football is a lot closer to a Kansas State than an Ohio State.
A One Year Sprint
No bones about it, next year should and will be viewed as a one-year sprint. Frost’s back is against the wall. Alberts won’t tolerate the “I grew up in Wood River” and young kids’ public pleading next season. Nor should he.
What Scott Frost will attempt to do in 2022 doesn’t have a ton of precedent. Very few coaches have ever had four straight losing seasons and got a fifth. Even fewer turned that fifth year into a winning campaign or sustained success. The OWH’s Dirk Chatlein actually did a great breakdown of that here.
There are so many questions for Frost and Husker fans headed into 2022. Instead of diving into the gag-inducing practice of guessing who they should target and who they can and definitely won’t get, let’s talk through three aspects that have been a bit overshadowed.
How difficult the rent-a-coach and transfer portal prospect idea will inevitably be.
How a one-year sprint impacts roster sustainability.
How this sprint could lead to a false positive with proof of concept.
Rent-A-Coach and the Transfer Portal
There’s been countless ink spilled this week discussing who the Huskers should and could hire as OC. That’s the table-setter role. Who gets hired there impacts the rest.
I think it’s been undersold how difficult it’s going to be convincing an offensive coordinator to come to Lincoln under the current circumstances. Frost bent the knee and fired all his buddies on that side of the ball. Loyalty is long gone there. If he fired his friends to save his own skin, you bet your ass he would do it again.
What would make a coach want to willingly walk into that? The media has been clammering for Frost to look at assistants with similar staff shake-ups so far this year: LSU, USC, Texas Tech, etc.
Why is a coach trading one burning building for another burning building? Even if the idea of Alberts squeezing Frost’s salary and buyout down was to increase the money pool for assistants: They’re going to be robbing Peter (Frost) to pay Paul (an OC who will likely be fired next year.) I think it will be difficult to hire the level of guy they want for this role.
College fanbases treat the concept of the transfer portal like the Dr. Pepper Fansville commercial. One guy walks in, allowing for another (presumably better) player to walk out. In the commercial, State swaps a great player for a punter toting a 12-pack of Dr. Pepper. It’s dollars to cents.
I am personally in favor of the transfer portal. Being a college kid is hard and sometimes things don’t work out. I like the one-year freebee transfer rule. That said, relying on the transfer portal is a dangerous game.
The transfer portal is like JUCO football. There’s a reason why the kid is there. Yes, sometimes a player just needs new scenery. Sometimes they go up a competition level and it works out. But more often than not, you’re trading one problem for another problem.
Nebraska should be leery of other programs that hitched their proverbial wagon to a large emphasis on portal players. Charlie Weiss at Kansas created a toxic program with guys that were bad at football and didn’t buy into a program. Texas State’s Jake Spavital stopped recruiting high school kids in favor of win-now players. He will most likely be fired in a few weeks. Be careful what you wish for.
Roster Sustainability
A one-year sprint approach will impact the entire roster and program. Don’t get it twisted.
Frost knows how uneven his footing is right now. Next year, he and his staff will only be focused on guys who can churn out immediate results. Proven guys. Transfer players. They’re showing that in their small 2022 recruiting class.
This churn and burn approach will likely have a detrimental impact on the back end of the roster. The Huskers love their in-state walk-on guys. Probably more than anyone. The coaching staff will inevitably be less focused on backend roster development and progress. Instant gratification.
Outside of backend development, a large influx of transfer players has combustible cornfield written all over it. There’s a reason they are transferring. Quick fix guys will block the development of younger, likely more bought-in guys. That will impact the program in 2, 3, 4 years, regardless if Frost is around. It’s not a sustainable approach to building a program and roster.
A Referendum Every Week
If Husker fans thought this year’s season was nauseating, wait until next year. That pressure-packed feeling is only amplified next year with NU trying to reach an unknown win threshold laid out by Alberts and Ronnie Green.
I have genuine concern on how this will impact: A) Frost’s decision-making B) player psychology.
A coach with his ass constantly on fire can’t think straight. Just ask Gus Malzahn. We watched the hire-fire cycle of Malzahn at Auburn for years. That man lived a few lifetimes in that 8-year stretch. Frost’s livelihood will be hanging in the balance every play. The tough questions will keep coming if things don’t go well.
There’s no way to truly tell, but I can imagine the pressure of this season was really hard on that roster. The players got sadder and more disappointed with every week. Next year, it’s up another level. Every fumble, missed kick, bad fall Saturday will keep fans and media asking: Was that play the one that will get Frost fired?
False Proof of Concept
One of my favorite CFB podcasts is Split Zone Duo. Those guys take a whole-hog approach to the sport and it’s a great listen. One theme they talk a lot about is proof of concept.
In this instance, proof of concept involves the belief that an approach is what directly led to success. While I don’t foresee Nebraska winning 7 or 8 games next year and bringing Frost back, if they do, I think it could lead to a false proof of concept. We won, so we should continue to purge our roster with the portal. We focused on immediate gratification and we should keep doing it.
This churn and burn approach could lead Frost and Alberts to think this is the way to do things. I touched on it earlier, but I think it’s far from sustainable.
The Fox & The Grapes
In Aesop’s Fable The Fox & The Grapes, a fox finds a vine of grapes high upon a tree branch. He tries and tries to reach them, to no avail. "What a fool I am," he said. "Here I am wearing myself out to get a bunch of sour grapes that are not worth gaping for."
Nebraska is wearing itself out an awful lot for someone who is 15-28 and who would be fired was he not from Wood River and played at Nebraska.
A new staff, new contract, a swath of new players and misguided new hope.
But like the realization of the fox, maybe, just maybe, the idea of Scott Frost just isn’t worth it anymore.