Thread by @PV_GIA

I think this is extremely telling on how little Frost has learned in four-plus seasons in the Big Ten, not just about the league (as @ScottDochterman pointed out earlier) but about his own talents.

https://twitter.com/sportingnews/status/1563634903400550403

Remember how, in his introductory press conference, Frost said he "hope(d) that the Big Ten would have to modify their system for us" rather than the other way around? saturdaytradition.com/nebraska-footb…

He'd fully bought his own bullshit when he arrived in Lincoln. He had every structural advantage possible at the G5 level while at UCF (infrastructure, local talent, lax enrollment, sheer size over his opponents), and landed a transcendent talent at QB to run his system.

He thought he had the next QB in Martinez, and his "system" was so foolproof with that position in place that the rest would take care of itself. The advantage was not in UCF. The advantage was singular to him and his method, and could go anywhere.

It's a common position at Nebraska, which has taken a set of structural advantages in the 80s and 90s (limited national TV, Prop 48 partial qualifiers, pressure for locals to walk on over a mid-tier offer, etc.) and distilled that success down to coach and scheme.

At some point in every one of the last 4 failing campaigns, Frost has flat-out admitted he needs better players than what he has. It's easy to see why he thinks that: The scheme works. It has to. So if it's not successful, it has to be down to the talent on the field.

He's never examined -- never even considered for a moment -- that it was the structural advantages of UCF as a football institution, not him, that was the cause of that singular season of success. Just as neither he nor his fans ever examine the structural problems at Nebraska

So now Frost has been stripped of playcalling by fiat of his AD. His scheme is bastardized and largely scuttled by an OC outside his usual circle of influence.

When it doesn't completely work in Week Zero, his immediate move is to stand up for HIS SCHEME over the interloper.

That comment isn't so much throwing Whipple under the bus. It's Frost shouting that the failures of the last 4 years weren't schematic. His system remains undefeated, even if his team is 15-30 over 4+ seasons.

He only knows one way to win: Have an overwhelming talent advantage and run his offense. He's never going to get the former at Nebraska -- not even with a transfer portal raid -- so he's going to hold onto the latter as the ship goes down.

tl;dnr: Even after 4+ years of failure, Scott Frost still buys his own bullshit, and if he survives this season, it's because he's at a place that is particularly inclined to buy it, too.

Footnote: Kirk Ferentz does this, too. He's been dedicated to his old-school Mike Shanahan version of the West Coast scheme since 1999, and grips it so firmly his knuckles are white.

But what Ferentz (and basically everyone in the B1G West besides Nebraska) figured out is that the talent component doesn't come from quick fixes, but from player development and marginal gains. Players fit the system, but also spend 2-3 years in the Iowa S&C incubator.

It's the greatest of ironies that Nebraska, the singular innovator in strength programs in the 1970s, keeps getting kicked in the teeth by the programs that have evolved that program, all the while claiming that it needs five-star quick fixes from recruiting that will never come.