ShortSideOption
Guest
Had a great conversation this weekend with some people that have some great tradition within the Nebraska football family. We started talking about things, and the "roster flip" that gets brought up so much here was brought up. I will leave some of what was said to privacy, but i'm curious the thoughts here now that over 70% of the roster is Frost guys.
For me, I think we flipped the heck out of the roster, and we are so young that a lot of these guys are learning how to be college student-athletes. I do think that's part of our issues, and guys like Cam Jurgens, Ethan Piper, Garrett Nelson, Nick Henrich, they will all be studs for us eventually. But you look around the country and see other schools not have the same issues. In fact, one of the big reasons we were so excited about Coach Frost was that he took an 0-12 team to an 13-0 team, ending the season beating Auburn. So much has to go right for you that you can't just luck into things like that, you have to be an outstanding coach. But it got me thinking when we were hashing this out this weekend, we have heard things like "UCF actually had more talent than us when they got there" or other things like that. It had me look into something....
I took a look at UCF 2016 and 2017 recruiting classes, and calculated how many starts those recruiting classes accounted for in the 2017 13-0 run:
2016 class:
Snelson - 10 starts
Johnson - 13 starts
Moore - 7 starts
Killins - 12 starts
Hill - 13 starts
2017 class:
Luyanda - 1 start
Davis - 13 starts
Anderson - 1 start
Hughes - 12 starts
Total 2017 starts from Frost recruiting classes - 82
It got me thinking, if UCF truly had more talent than what Frost saw when he was here, we had to be close to the 100s for starts from his 2018 and 2019 class, right?
2018 class:
Taylor-Britt - 7 starts
DWilliams - 1 start
Jurgens - 9 starts
2019 class:
Robinson - 9 starts
Total 2019 starts from Frost recruiting classes - 21
Disclaimer - I left Milton and Martinez out because Frost got his QB first year at both places, didn't need that skewing things one way or the other. Secondly, I realize i'm doing this experiment with 3 games left, so guys like Robinson, Jurgens, and Taylor-Britt probably gonna bring another 9 starts to things. I also know DWilliams would have been starting every game if not for getting hurt (but I didn't take that into account for UCF guys either).
So they had over 3 times the amount of starts, but let's just call it double since our season isn't over and someone could end up starting for us. Why is that? If UCF had more talent, why could more recruits come in and play right away for Frost? Are we not recruiting as well as they were at UCF? This list also doesn't include guys like Gabriel Davis who in his true freshman campaign in 2017 had 27 catches for 391 yards and 4 touchdowns.
I just found this fascinating because there's a lot of narratives out there, and they are all starting to overlap and cancel each other out. If UCF was that much better than Nebraska, why could he get twice as many starts out of his first recruiting classes? What did he say down there that resonated and got the team going that isn't working here?
Anyways, just found these stats interesting.
For me, I think we flipped the heck out of the roster, and we are so young that a lot of these guys are learning how to be college student-athletes. I do think that's part of our issues, and guys like Cam Jurgens, Ethan Piper, Garrett Nelson, Nick Henrich, they will all be studs for us eventually. But you look around the country and see other schools not have the same issues. In fact, one of the big reasons we were so excited about Coach Frost was that he took an 0-12 team to an 13-0 team, ending the season beating Auburn. So much has to go right for you that you can't just luck into things like that, you have to be an outstanding coach. But it got me thinking when we were hashing this out this weekend, we have heard things like "UCF actually had more talent than us when they got there" or other things like that. It had me look into something....
I took a look at UCF 2016 and 2017 recruiting classes, and calculated how many starts those recruiting classes accounted for in the 2017 13-0 run:
2016 class:
Snelson - 10 starts
Johnson - 13 starts
Moore - 7 starts
Killins - 12 starts
Hill - 13 starts
2017 class:
Luyanda - 1 start
Davis - 13 starts
Anderson - 1 start
Hughes - 12 starts
Total 2017 starts from Frost recruiting classes - 82
It got me thinking, if UCF truly had more talent than what Frost saw when he was here, we had to be close to the 100s for starts from his 2018 and 2019 class, right?
2018 class:
Taylor-Britt - 7 starts
DWilliams - 1 start
Jurgens - 9 starts
2019 class:
Robinson - 9 starts
Total 2019 starts from Frost recruiting classes - 21
Disclaimer - I left Milton and Martinez out because Frost got his QB first year at both places, didn't need that skewing things one way or the other. Secondly, I realize i'm doing this experiment with 3 games left, so guys like Robinson, Jurgens, and Taylor-Britt probably gonna bring another 9 starts to things. I also know DWilliams would have been starting every game if not for getting hurt (but I didn't take that into account for UCF guys either).
So they had over 3 times the amount of starts, but let's just call it double since our season isn't over and someone could end up starting for us. Why is that? If UCF had more talent, why could more recruits come in and play right away for Frost? Are we not recruiting as well as they were at UCF? This list also doesn't include guys like Gabriel Davis who in his true freshman campaign in 2017 had 27 catches for 391 yards and 4 touchdowns.
I just found this fascinating because there's a lot of narratives out there, and they are all starting to overlap and cancel each other out. If UCF was that much better than Nebraska, why could he get twice as many starts out of his first recruiting classes? What did he say down there that resonated and got the team going that isn't working here?
Anyways, just found these stats interesting.
Last edited: