Frost needs his guys/We are young/Wisconsin... ugh

[N2FL]

Think it is significant opposing coahing staffs now have a year and a half of film to study Nebraska scheme and personal in the BIG 10 Iidentifing strengths and weaknesses in scheme and position personal playing at this level. Believe this plays a role in 2019 team results.

Husker coaches have the same info on the rest of the conference. That's a weak excuse.

 

[wcbsas]

Agree... but let's take a look just offensively:

Lost Stanley Morgan, replaced with Kanawai Noa. Is that a "what Frost inherited" problem? Why did our 2018 Nebraska WR recruiting class have 6 guys in it, 1 of which never made it to campus (Watt), 3 of which aren't even on the team anymore (McGriff, Hunt, LeGrone), and the other 2 are seniors who have combined for 4 receptions this year. that's probably why the WRs look so bad this year. Tack on we didn't take a JUCO WR in 2019 and are redshirting our only WRs from that class, i'm not really sure that's a lack of talent problem. More a lack of identification problem.

We lose Tanner Farmer and replace him with Desmond Bland. Doesn't make it. Now you are forced to play Jurgens or Farniok.

We lose Ozigbo and your RBs from 2018 are Washington, Bell, and Jones. Bell leaves, Washington (I won't go there), and Jones can't get on the field to save his life. 2019 brings us Mills who is basically playing out of necessity right now, Thompkins who hurt his knee for a third straight year, and Johnson. Robinson really is the bell cow for our offense and that's not good from a 5'7 guy.

I guess what i'm getting at.... is tons of people play inexperienced freshmen and sophomores. Tack on the fact guys like Matt Farniok, Adrian Martinez, Mo Barry, all look worse this year, and not only is it a identification and recruiting issue, but is there also some lack of development? Arguably our best development is by a position group that had a change in coaches.

Why are we comparing Morgan to Noa?
Why isn't Wandale Robinson the benchmark for comparison?
They may not specifically play the same position but statistically MR is right up there with Morgan especially if you consider his rushing yards!

 

[BornHusker68]

Just a few things i'm pondering as I took today off of work, let's just get right into it....

Frost just needs his guys:
I always try to not take what a caption on twitter says, or a coaches off the cuff comment is too seriously. But this tweet got a good debate going on my group chat:


Here we are yet again, does Frost have his guys? What's going to happen when we have ours? I don't need to rehash how frustrated it makes me when I get told Frost inherited terrible talent, yet in 2019 the reason we are struggling is because Foster, Farmer, Morgan, Ozigbo, Gifford, all those guys are gone and we didn't replace them. I had someone also unwilling to tell me we had better talent than Troy last year despite getting beat, and i'd again point to if that's the case, then apparently the guys not good enough to beat Troy last year were the same ones that are causing us to once again struggle with Colorado and Northwestern this year, and all of a sudden make us have to come from behind to beat Illinois despite beating them handily last year. And all of a sudden have us get destroyed at home to Ohio State despite playing them within a touchdown last year. And then get drilled by Minnesota this year after we took them to the woodshed last year. There's reasons for everything, but the eyeball test is looking like we have not improved from 2018 to 2019 in many areas.

The whole "Frost just needs his guys" is also interesting to me because just this spring we were applauding Frost for his roster turnover. "Never seen anything like it", "Frost isn't messing around." Those comments and us being in awe of the roster overhaul sparked this article:

Driving for 6: Spring attrition and what the Huskers' roster management numbers tell us

A Friday look at Nebraska's spring attrition and what the team's current roster construction and numbers can tell us.

journalstar.com

Long story short, after spring this year, 99 of the 155 players on the roster are Frost players (64%). We added guys like Noa, Mills, Schlager, and all of the freshmen recruits. "Overall, the Huskers have welcomed at least 110 players to the program since Frost's hire." There is more to this for me than just "Frost needs his guys". Let's dive deeper:

1) Stanley Morgan, Luke Gifford, Devine Ozigbo, all of those weren't Frost's guys, and we would take them starting for us in a heartbeat.
2) We get to where people quote Matt Farniok as being a guy we wouldn't want, but he's a four star out of South Dakota. Probably playing out of position tho (we will come back to that).
3) The entire backfield we are playing is Scott Frost guys. Mills, Robinson, Washington, Johnson.

We are young, injured, and lack depth:
Back to the Farniok deal... we would take Farniok all day with Frost at the helm. A four star lineman from South Dakota with offers from Florida, Florida State, Wisconsin, Stanford. Ya, that's a Frost guy. But the injury to Christian Gaylord in fall camp put us in a rough spot. Farniok couldn't move to guard without burning Benharts redshirt now that Gaylord went down. Next year, I do expect our line to look pretty different, and much much improved:

LT Jaimes - Corcoran
LG Bando - Hixson
C Jurgens - Farniok
RG Farniok - Wilson
RT Benhart - Fritzsche

I like where that's going, but we can't get there because we are young, preserving redshirts, and injured. Benhart and Piper will be multiple year starters for us, and obviously Jurgens will be too.

But you can go further than just OL. At ILB we are struggling but you don't want to burn redshirts now with Hannah, Reimber, Henrich, etc. OLB no depth. WR you can't burn Nance, Houston, and Chase's redshirt. Nor do you want to do that with Johnson at RB.

I think our floor is way too low with what we are doing right now, but our ceiling will be extremely high. Our coaches could have us with a few more wins right now, but I don't want to get upset too much on it because 6 wins or 8 wins, does it really matter in the grand scheme? I just think there is some responsibility on people other than the players right now.

Wisconsin
Don't really need to say much here, but they run a 3-4 and what do you think's going to happen when they call this against our offensive line?

The way I see it Frost needs his type of guys AND have them “seasoned”. It’s a blend. The seniors that left were not his guys, put they were his type of guys and they were “seasoned”. But very few last year. Their great production coming more from being seniors that have worked hard over years to be productive. Yes, big turn over in the roster and those players are his guys but they just haven’t had the benefit of being in the system yet. There is a big jump competing at the college level. Good programs do get production from every level (freshman...senior), but it is top heavy with upperclassman. We do not have that. So yes Frost turned the roster over but they need time to develop.

 

[wcbsas]

The way I see it Frost needs his type of guys AND have them “seasoned”. It’s a blend. The seniors that left were not his guys, put they were his type of guys and they were “seasoned”. But very few last year. Their great production coming more from being seniors that have worked hard over years to be productive. Yes, big turn over in the roster and those players are his guys but they just haven’t had the benefit of being in the system yet. There is a big jump competing at the college level. Good programs do get production from every level (freshman...senior), but it is top heavy with upperclassman. We do not have that. So yes Frost turned the roster over but they need time to develop.

That comparison doesn't fare well if you look at an Arizona State who had the same coaching change ... ASU is 5-1 this year and has less upperclassmen starting and less upperclassmen on their two-deep than does Nebraska.

Fundamentally of course you are right but somehow Herm Edwards is making it work!

 

[BornHusker68]

That comparison doesn't fare well if you look at an Arizona State who had the same coaching change ... ASU is 5-1 this year and has less upperclassmen starting and less upperclassmen on their two-deep than does Nebraska.

Fundamentally of course you are right but somehow Herm Edwards is making it work!

Agree, but then you bring in who they played and how were those rosters stacked. There is never going to be a perfect opinion or fix to a problem as there will aways be an outlier. My opinion is we have a void in enough of the blended player right now (good talent that worked hard for years). In my opinion it was caused because of the quick turnover of the roster. So do you do a quick turn around and have pain for a couple of years. Or slowly let those players stay in the system infect others and have small pain every year like we have had for the last 18. Again I don’t disagree with one team out there doing better now but I think the cupboard was cleaned and it will be restocked for better long term results.

 

[cthusker]

This feels like an unforced error on Frost's part. IMO, it's never going to be useful or motivating for your current players to hear their coach tell the press he needs "better" players, even if it's true.

He should have left it at: "We know our schemes on both sides work, they've worked for a long time. We gotta get better at them."

Perhaps it's time for some of those players to step up and prove they are better then they looked so far this season!

 

[HuskerInTexas]

Curious for the more seasoned folks in here - is the concern around burning a redshirt more about physical/mental ability or is it that we want them for the entirety of their collegiate career?

 

[N2FL]

Frost knows Huskers need to stack strong recruiting classes

Frost was planning to hit the road Friday and Saturday for recruiting during this bye week.

247sports.com

 

[djlhuskerfan]

Curious for the more seasoned folks in here - is the concern around burning a redshirt more about physical/mental ability or is it that we want them for the entirety of their collegiate career?

I would say in the case of Benhart, if we are better if him at tackle and Farniok at guard then we should use him now and not worry about the redshirt. You have three more years to recruit and develop his replacement 3 years from now. Waiting until next year to start him then we just extend his learning curve out another year.

 

[wcbsas]

Agree, but then you bring in who they played and how were those rosters stacked. There is never going to be a perfect opinion or fix to a problem as there will aways be an outlier. My opinion is we have a void in enough of the blended player right now (good talent that worked hard for years). In my opinion it was caused because of the quick turnover of the roster. So do you do a quick turn around and have pain for a couple of years. Or slowly let those players stay in the system infect others and have small pain every year like we have had for the last 18. Again I don’t disagree with one team out there doing better now but I think the cupboard was cleaned and it will be restocked for better long term results.

We really shouldn't concern ourselves with comparisons because they never truly work ... and ASU could still end up with a record similar to NU by season's end ... they play Utah, USC, Oregon yet.

But ... in this comparison ASU is playing more younger guys on their 2-deep than is NU. So I don't think in regards to this comparison that we've cleaned the cupboards any more than they did.

I also don't believe in the "running-off of players" in the first place. Every one of Riley's kids were recruited to play at DONU. They immediately became SF's kids when he signed his contract. They all had an opportunity to play for him ... I know a lot of kids sign on to play for the coach - i.e. Gebbia for Riley ... but most will play for the new guy if they feel they're given a fair shake. If some kids aren't working out - not buying into new expectations/culture/rules ... then by all means feel free to leave ... but it shouldn't just be Riley's former players - it should be anyone.

 

[CrabHusker]

I would say in the case of Benhart, if we are better if him at tackle and Farniok at guard then we should use him now and not worry about the redshirt. You have three more years to recruit and develop his replacement 3 years from now. Waiting until next year to start him then we just extend his learning curve out another year.

If he’s physically able to win the position, play him. I’ll say that for everyone on the roster.

I’ll be fine complaining about losing a great senior in four years if we’re winning football games.

 

[HuskerInTexas]

I would say in the case of Benhart, if we are better if him at tackle and Farniok at guard then we should use him now and not worry about the redshirt. You have three more years to recruit and develop his replacement 3 years from now. Waiting until next year to start him then we just extend his learning curve out another year.

If he’s physically able to win the position, play him. I’ll say that for everyone on the roster.

I’ll be fine complaining about losing a great senior in four years if we’re winning football games.

This is exactly why I was asking that question. If it's about physical ability then I can at least better understand them not playing. If we're concerned about preserving the talent then I think it's a mistake. I think people would be ok with struggles if it feels like we're playing young guys who are developing. A lot of these kids struggling aren't in year 1 or 2 with us

 

[cthusker]

If he’s physically able to win the position, play him. I’ll say that for everyone on the roster.

I’ll be fine complaining about losing a great senior in four years if we’re winning football games.

Might be playing him if someone had a contract for 3 or 4 years as opposed to 7? If the very best we have at any position isn't playing then I strongly disagree with the decision to RS them.

 

[ShortSideOption]

If Jaimes is the starter at tackle next year . . . I'll be really worried. He and Farniok just look abysmal at tackle and neither seems to be getting better in any way.

I understand that, I just think Jaimes will be better than a true freshman. Jaimes hasn't been that bad IMO, but I could be proven wrong. I think he's been average to good.

 

[ShortSideOption]

I'd suggest that there may be some long-term roster management efforts at work here. You never know exactly what will happen in the future, but you can make educated assumptions about positions and likely future needs. I haven't analyzed it, but it's possible there are some guys that are close to being ready to play, but they're not head and shoulders better than older players in front of them. Do you burn a redshirt to get similar results? The trade off is gaining experience, but at what cost to the program in 2, 3, 4 years?

Again, I don't know exactly what the thought process is at each position, but Frost is trying to build a program for long-term success. It's tough to be patient, but that might be what we need right now.

That being said, you have to wonder why some things aren't coming together a little better than they are. I don't have all the answers.

First paragraph, spot on. Ethan Piper probably pretty close to better than Boe Wilson, Benhart to Farniok. just a couple examples.

That said, WR 2018 recruiting was abysmal. Kade Warner still the best we got outside.