Scott Frost jumped on the Big Ten coaches teleconference call Wednesday afternoon and covered a myriad of topics. Below is a rundown of everything he covered.
>> Frost was asked about any goals he had entering into spring and whether he accomplished those goals and he said “we don’t really measure success the way you’re describing.”
“I just want our guys to come to work every day and be better on the field every day than they were the day before,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, a lot of things to get better at, we’ve got a lot of culture to adopt and install, a lot of X’s and O’s to adopt and install.”
He said they’re “certainly” not where they want to be as a team, but he says there’s been a noticeable improvement since the beginning of s pring ball.
>> Frost wasn’t surprised the Spring Game sold out.
“I watch other spring games on TV and see crowds that aren’t very big and that’s one of the things that makes Nebraska special,” he said. “We’re going to have a sellout for our spring game just like we have for every game since 1962 in this stadium and you won’t find fan support like that anywhere.”
>> On his quarterbacks, Frost didn’t say anything new. Asked how that group was progressing and whether he was close to a decision, Frost said they’re not there yet. He did add, though, that there’s a bit of a gut feeling to the process.
“Sometimes it’s a gut feeling,” he said. “A lot of times it really defines itself, with all the reps we get in practice it usually becomes pretty clear. We’ve had a couple years where it’s really close. Those are good problems, if you have more than one player that’s capable of doing it, you’re usually in a good spot. I suppose when it comes down to it there’s a little bit of a gut feel of who has that 'it' factor, and who can go on the field and make plays for us and lead the team.”
>> One of the major recruiting changes coming this season is a visit window in April and June, but Frost said the staff isn’t “going to be real fired up about using official visits in the spring.” Partially because their visits still haven’t reset from the 2017-18 window and they don’t have much of anything to work with, but also because he wants kids to experience a real Nebraska game day.
“There’s very few game-day experiences like we have in Lincoln,” he said.
He’s also not a fan of the time gap that would exist between a spring visit and a December signing period.
“I’m also personally not too crazy about getting too many kids committed in May, June, because you have to hold onto them for a long time,” he said. “When a kid commits here I want it to be final, I want them to be done looking. We’re going to be committed to them and not yank their scholarship if somebody better wants to come or if someone gets hurt.
“If a kid belongs to us they’re ours, and we’re going to honor that and if a kid commits to us we’re going to expect them to honor that as well.”
>> When it comes to a proposed change to the player transfer rules — allowing players to have immediate eligibility after transferring — Frost said he’s all for player freedom and a player’s right to control their own future, but he feels there are potential dangers to opening up a market of sorts.
"I wouldn’t put it past a lot of schools to have agents and recruiters on other campuses recruiting players,” he said.
Frost acknowledged that if players could freely transfer Nebraska coaches would check in on talent at FCS schools in North and South Dakota, schools like Alabama and USC would check in on talent in Lincoln and roster building would become difficult.
He also said that “as a coach, sometimes you have to be hard on guys and discipline them” and if the player can easily transfer away, the coach would lose some power and be at the mercy of a kid that doesn’t want to hear tough love.
As for GPA incentives that could be put into place, Frost suggested coaches could snowball players’ GPAs in order to keep them at a university.
Derek is a newbie on the Hail Varsity staff covering Husker athletics. In college, he was best known as ‘that guy from Twitter.’ He has covered a Sugar Bowl, a tennis national championship and almost everything in between (except an NCAA men’s basketball tournament game… *tears*). In his spare time, he can be found arguing with literally anyone about sports.
