Who bought into the "we are close" mentality of last season?

[HuskerAlum92]

This topic is a case study in how people can make themselves believe what they want to believe. Very obvious and objective facts are suppressed if they dont fit. Flimsy arguments at best are championed if they somehow support the desired narrative. Strengthen those arguments by agreeing with people that repeat them, and ignoring or shouting down those that believe otherwise.

How could this have gone so wrong? Everybody believed we were on the right track.

 

[goldencohusker]

As fan's we've had to pin our hopes that "change" was going to fix this program's ills for over 2 decades now. New head coaches, new assistants, new S&C coordinators, new facilities, better recruits, more reliance on the portal....on and on and on. Last year, while we were "close" alot, its not like we headed into this season with alot of momentum with a focus on simply getting better at what was already working. Instead it was more changes and hope the stars were going to align - ultimately another case of plugging fingers in the leaking dike. Bottom line, I wasn't confident that "close" last year was going to translate into success this year, only hopeful. As a fan of a struggling program you either have hope or you quit following out of frustration.

 

[dinglefritz]

What it really means is that those that thought we would be better were flat out wrong. I was not one of them.

All it would have taken was to get rid of one or two boneheaded plays per game to have been an 8-9 win team last year. The hope was we could do that this year. Wrong. Nobody fully understood what we lost to the NFL and the Oregon Ducks.

 

[phoenix4nu]

I'm on record as fire his sorry drunk ass last year.

Under what screen name?

 

[inWV]

All it would have taken was to get rid of one or two boneheaded plays per game to have been an 8-9 win team last year. The hope was we could do that this year. Wrong. Nobody fully understood what we lost to the NFL and the Oregon Ducks.

Rogers playing quite a bit. Riley has a couple of tackles per game.

 

[Meanfarmer3160]

Under

Under what screen name?

This famous one the only one I have.

 

[Meanfarmer3160]

All it would have taken was to get rid of one or two boneheaded plays per game to have been an 8-9 win team last year. The hope was we could do that this year. Wrong. Nobody fully understood what we lost to the NFL and the Oregon Ducks.

So your saying our 5 million dollar man didn't know? Would've could've should've.

 

[dinglefritz]

So your saying our 5 million dollar man didn't know? Would've could've should've.

Apparently not because he let 2 reasonably talented interior D linemen walk and he retained a crappy DC. I firmly believe that IF Frost had canned Chin before the season started that we would have at a minimum 5 wins. No way an even average DC gets beat by Northwestern and Georgia Southern.

 

[goldencohusker]

Based on the results on the field, I think there has only been one season (2009) in the last 20 where I felt confident that the program was heading in the right direction at the end of the season - the other 19 have been hope-based. 2009 was when it appeared that we had truly hired a defensive guru in Pelini and ended with the last second loss to TX in the BG12 championship game, followed by the blowout, shut-out bowl win against Arizona. Even our last winning season (2016 under Riley) ended with losses in 3 of the final 5 games, including blowout losses to OSU and Iowa.

 

[dinglefritz]

Based on the results on the field, I think there has only been one season (2009) in the last 20 where I felt confident that the program was heading in the right direction at the end of the season - the other 19 have been hope-based. 2009 was when it appeared that we had truly hired a defensive guru in Pelini and ended with the last second loss to TX in the BG12 championship game, followed by the blowout, shut-out bowl win against Arizona under Pelini. Even our last winning season (2016 under Riley) ended with losses in 3 of the final 5 games, including blowout losses to OSU and Iowa.

And that 09 team was a team loaded with Callahans recruits and Bill’s OC. It was all downhill from there.

 

[HuskerAlum92]

All it would have taken was to get rid of one or two boneheaded plays per game to have been an 8-9 win team last year. The hope was we could do that this year. Wrong. Nobody fully understood what we lost to the NFL and the Oregon Ducks.

All it would have taken to have more hope and optimism right now:
A new and competent coaching staff in place since last Thanksgiving. A staff that has spent the last 11 months teaching fundamentals and technique, establishing their team’s culture and offensive/defensive identity, weeding out any malcontents and uncoachables. A staff that would be locking up their first true and full recruiting class.

But, we couldn’t have that. Too many people wanted to believe that error free football was somehow possible with Frost, if we just made him do less.

 

[dinglefritz]

All it would have taken to have more hope and optimism right now:
A new and competent coaching staff in place since last Thanksgiving. A staff that has spent the last 11 months teaching fundamentals and technique, establishing their team’s culture and offensive/defensive identity, weeding out any malcontents and uncoachables. A staff that would be locking up their first true and full recruiting class.

But, we couldn’t have that. Too many people wanted to believe that error free football was somehow possible with Frost, if we just made him do less.

To be fair, some of Frost’s organizational and personal problems didn’t come to light until Trev had a chance to plant his moles in the program.

to his credit he bided his time and pulled the plug as soon as he had the political capital to do it. He didn’t give Frost the chance to squeak out a couple of wins.

 

[WHCSC]

I almost bought in. I was close.

 

[oldjar07]

And that 09 team was a team loaded with Callahans recruits and Bill’s OC. It was all downhill from there.

Every 2nd year coach has majority the previous coach's players. Look at Heupel at Tennessee, the previous guy wasn't able to do anything with that talent, but Heupel is getting the most of the talent that they had already had on the roster. Callahan was loaded with Solich recruits especially on the defensive side, and yet he couldn't do a thing with it. Also the 2010 team, which had more Pelini recruits, was better than the 09 team.

 

[hephusker]

Apparently not because he let 2 reasonably talented interior D linemen walk and he retained a crappy DC. I firmly believe that IF Frost had canned Chin before the season started that we would have at a minimum 5 wins. No way an even average DC gets beat by Northwestern and Georgia Southern.

Chins was a major problem. He will never work again in D1 football. Doesn't know what he is doing.

 

[RecruitingAnalyst_National]

I admit, I bought in. I thought Frost would turn a corner this season but I realized that wouldn't happen when we lost to Northwestern, struggled to beat North Dakota and lost to Georgia Southern.

I sure did with the changes made on offense coming into this season. However, I certainly didn't anticipate the defense collapsing to the degree it did and I also didn't think Donovan Raiola would be this bad of Oline coach. I was very skeptical of his hire in the off-season and the performance on the field has substantiated my skepticism and hindered the offense's consistency and performance.

The offense shows glimpses of brilliance when the Oline and QB execute on their jobs - but those brights spots have been few and far between and the consistency hasn't been there. Another yr. together with new Oline coach and better QB playcould make this offense a top 25 scoring offense

 

[HuskerAlum92]

To be fair, some of Frost’s organizational and personal problems didn’t come to light until Trev had a chance to plant his moles in the program.

to his credit he bided his time and pulled the plug as soon as he had the political capital to do it. He didn’t give Frost the chance to squeak out a couple of wins.

I suspect the problems with Frost were known within the walls, and the motivation behind the firing of Moos. I suspect Trev was informed about those problems on day 1. There were “rumors” about some of the problems at the time.

I am kind of upset with the power people that forced Frost for 2022. I knew we would be right here where we are now. I give Trev a bit of a pass because I suspect his hands were tied with big donors making threats to withhold funds, a big construction project looming, the size of Frost’s buyout, and general love for Frost in the fandom. Perhaps I am wrong and Trev was the driving force.

 

[CornHusker_635]

I was skeptical of our defense and also our O line but was optimistic about our play makers on offense. However, husker sports media like Sean Callahan talked about us all offseason as if we had nothing to worry about. Starting to trust Nebraska sports media less and less.

1) too many of them
2) they are salesman at the end of the day
3) they dont even report the trust (see scott frost story's coming out post firing)
4) they offer zero inside info
5) they ask zero tough questions

They are essentially right hand man of the program themselves and TBH i think some of the blame related to our current program status falls on them. They are in bed with the coaches and admin and are only interested in more subscriptions i think at this point. Didnt use to think this 10 years ago. But they ran Bo out the door. Hyped up Riley when it was blatantly the worse hire ever. Then covered up for scott frost. We will see what their new approach is with the next guy

 

[HuskerAlum92]

And to clarify, all the stuff that didn’t become widely public knowledge doesn’t matter in the determination of whether Frost should have been back for 2022. His public, on the field, record was more than enough.

Cant fix special teams
Can’t fix center snap issues
Can’t fix OL coaching
Can’t establish work ethic
Can’t establish discipline
Can’t win after a bye week
Can’t avoid shutgun at goal line or 3rd-1
Can’t just run the ball with a RB
Cant out-coach any B1G coach, or FBS.
Can’t win a halftime adjustment
Can’t manage time at end of half/game
Can’t win against a team with a pulse.
Can’t develop players.

None of the off field allegations were needed. They just help to explain why and how it was really that bad

 

[Anegada1]

I admit, I bought in. I thought Frost would turn a corner this season but I realized that wouldn't happen when we lost to Northwestern, struggled to beat North Dakota and lost to Georgia Southern.

Hook, line and sinker