Frank Solich (Pelini coached the bowl game?) went 10-3 in 2003. That team was ranked as high as #10 in the country.
Here is a look at the 18 years since that 10-3 season in 2003:
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2004: 5-6 Bill Callahan (4 years)
2005: 8-4
2006: 9-5
2007: 5-7
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2008: 9-4 Bo Pelini (7 years)
2009: 10-4
2010: 10-4
2011: 9-4
2012: 10-4
2013: 9-4
2014: 9-4
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2015: 6-7 Mike Riley (3 years)
2016: 9-4
2017: 4-8
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2018: 4-8 Scott Frost (4 years)
2019: 5-7
2020: 3-5
2021: 3-4
Nice distraction. Iowa lost. Don’t use replacement insult to make us feel better.In this column, Chatelain asks if Frost knows what he is doing.
Chatelain: Scott Frost can't seem to find medicine for Husker headaches
- Dirk Chatelain
- Omaha World Herald
- Dec 13, 2020 Updated 2 hrs ago
Happy Hanukkah. Merry Christmas. Hallelujah. Where’s the Tylenol?
Favored by 10 points on Senior Day, in a game necessary to avoid a fourth consecutive losing season, facing a team without 30-plus players, a 2-3 opponent that hadn’t played in three weeks, Nebraska lost inexplicably.
Again.
You can sift through the wreckage as much as your stomach will tolerate: the swing pass for minus-9 yards on the first snap, the minus-2 turnover margin, the missed 32-yard field goal, the 8-yard punt, the zero sacks, the 10-minute difference in time of possession, the 8-yard difference in average field position, the 3.8 yards per pass attempt, the holding penalty that wiped out a fourth-quarter touchdown.
But all of that boils down to this: Does Scott Frost know what he’s doing?
Not one of us has learned more football — certainly not from more impressive minds — than Nebraska’s coach. To suggest that Frost didn’t have the preparation to succeed in Lincoln is laughable.
But what good is knowledge if you can’t pass it on to your players? For three years, Frost’s pedigree hasn’t done him a bit of good. Your local high school coach wouldn’t do much worse than 11 wins and 20 losses at Nebraska.
Four decades of watching successful Husker football didn’t teach Nebraskans how to coach. But all those 10-win seasons did teach us to recognize good football.
Block and tackle. Take care of the ball. Limit penalties and blown plays. Take advantage of opportunities when your opponent gives you one. It’s not complicated.
Look at Iowa State this year, or Indiana, or Northwestern, or Coastal Carolina.
Nebraska doesn’t show much interest in the formula. Its quarterbacks miss critical throws to open receivers downfield. Its offensive linemen commit backbreaking penalties. Its defenders don’t create havoc. Its coach calls plays that, within a second after the snap, resemble training drills for a CPR class.
As you watched Saturday, did you notice how frequently Minnesota, which hadn’t played in 22 days, lined up and executed a basic play? Meanwhile, Nebraska, which gained 308 yards in 65 snaps, rarely found a rhythm.
Frost’s offense has two persistent, glaring flaws:
1. The inability to bust big plays. Nebraska’s vertical passing game is so atrocious at this point, Frost might as well run the wishbone.
2. The inability to string five, six, seven solid plays together. With the exception of about one drive per game, defenses merely have to wait for a Big Red breakdown.
Those two characteristics go together like gravy and Jell-o. Yet despite all its issues, Nebraska was still hanging in there Saturday, until the final drive of the third quarter.
Then disaster arrived.
First down from the NU 36: Play-action fake, Adrian Martinez missed a semi-open Austin Allen.
Second down: Martinez missed a semi-open Wan’Dale Robinson.
Third down: Sack and Martinez fumble.
Minnesota took the ball 39 yards and scored, essentially ending Husker hopes and kickstarting another postgame autopsy.
Multiple times during Frost’s press conference, he referenced how well Nebraska prepared this week. All the plays they executed in practice.
“I hate to even say this,” Frost said, “but we had our best week of practice offensively maybe since I’ve been in Nebraska.”
Multiple times, he referenced youth as a reason for game-day mistakes.
“It’s not meant to be an excuse, but we’re still playing a lot of young guys and as they grow, they’re going to win more often than they lose,” Frost said. “You can’t call however many pass plays we called and miss five and get sacked and get beaten in protection two or three times. Those mistakes get you beat in this league.”
But relying on young guys usually means that older guys haven’t developed. That’s on the coaching staff, right?
More to the point, Frost’s offensive starters Saturday consisted of three seniors (including a left tackle making his 40th career start), four juniors (including a third-year starting quarterback), two sophomores (including Robinson, who’s certainly not part of the problem) and two freshmen. The lineup didn’t include senior Dedrick Mills, his top tailback.
In this era of college football, that’s more experience than any coach could ask for.
If, at this point in Frost’s tenure, you’re ranting and raving like Clark Griswold after opening his Christmas bonus, you have good reason. You might even have the urge to put a big ribbon on Frost’s head and call him every name in the book.
But it doesn’t solve the problem.
Frost must fix this offense before August 2021. Whether it’s recruiting a mercenary quarterback or developing his young receivers or modifying his scheme to better fit the Big Ten West or overhauling practices to ensure that Monday reps feel more like Saturday, he has to find a way. He can’t put his fans through another fall like this.
In 20 previous seasons, the Huskers lost nine times as a double-digit favorite. Nebraska did it in back-to-back home games.
Three years into the Frost era, he still can’t find the medicine for this headache.
Chatelain: Scott Frost can't seem to find medicine for Husker headaches
To suggest that Scott Frost didn’t have the preparation to succeed in Lincoln is laughable, writes Dirk Chatelain. But what good is knowledge if you can’t pass it on toomaha.com
