Husker Football Monday Press Conference

Scott Frost met with the media, as usual, on Monday to discuss the weekend’s performance and what they are doing to prepare for the next game. Spoiler: The Huskers aren’t a good team yet and it shows up in the details.

On Indiana’s assertion (from the athletic director) that the Husker coaches showed a lack of respect to Indiana

There was a meeting earlier today where Coach Frost cleared the assistant coaches out of the room and addressed players and the team. There were apparently apologies on both sides.

On plans for Luke McCaffrey

On chewing out the team

He added

...if that’s what it takes, that might be what we have to do in the short term...I think most of our kids care and want to be great...

On how the coaches have adjusted as the season has gone on

We’re not a good team yet. No one is happy, everyone is working on getting better...I don’t know if it is the coaches needing to get better, players not doing what we tell them, but if it’s kids not doing what we tell them, that comes back to coaches

I don’t question my coaches...if I see something, we’ll address it and get it take care of

Specifically, the media was going after Erik Chinander and how he is doing his job. I’m not sure what they expected Frost to say or do while still in the middle of the season. He’s certainly not going to fire anyone right now and probably not even after the season. He believe in his staff and he values continuity.

Continuity hadn’t been here before we got here, it will help

Details, details, details were a big theme of the presser today. Coach Frost made it clear what he is emphasizing in the next step for the culture of the Husker program.

What it boiled down to on Saturday is guys not being focused enough and conscientious enough to do their jobs and pay attention to details (more below)

On Rondale Moore and preparing for Purdue (whether Moore plays or not)

We think he’s one of the best players in the country and we aren’t alone in that, but they have a lot of guys that are special. The coaches are smart with what they do, we’ll prepare for Purdue regardless if he’s healthy or not...they’ve got some other good receivers, some good backs, two quarterbacks have played and they’ve both done a good job

On bringing in different players (benching starters)

In some cases, it was just miscommunication, the wrong player was on their best receiver...we put the players out there that we feel give us the best chance but injuries limit us a bit...(He went on to same some players who are out or are nicked up such as Deontre Thomas and Cam Taylor-Britt)

Tyrin Ferguson will be available this week. (He was not available vs Indiana)

In other words, don’t expect a whole lot of people to be benched or drastic changes in the depth chart.

More on Chinander

Chins (Erik Chinander) is one of the smartest coaches I’ve been around. To me, what is happening now is some of the little details that we need to get better at. Everyone who plays for Chins plays hard for him, we are playing harder than before. What’s missing is attention to detail and getting the job done...no one had to tell Jason Peter that, no one had to tell Grant Wistrom...that falls on us as coaches to make sure they do it...Chins is the guy to get it done

On why Wan’Dale played instead of Dedrick Mills in most of the second half

I trust Dedrick Mills to make plays, he missed one block and it led to a fumble and it was probably a 14 point swing in the game, but he’s one of the guys who cares and works hard...it was more of a matter of Wan’dale making plays...he missed some practice so it was easier to put him out there at RB instead of receiver with limited practice time

We have heard the “we’ve got to get better at the details” comments before. This isn’t Frost giving us coach-speak. I think he really believes that is how to change the mentality of team members and how they dig out of the hole they are in. How quickly it happens is being limited by a lack of options on the depth chart in places (that’s me reading into the situation and not having anything substantial to back it up).

I also believe him when he says that he trusts his coaching staff. I don’t take that to mean he doesn’t think there aren’t problems, but he values that trust and he values having a staff that has a shared vision and is working toward the same things. That really does matter in building a culture. Trust is everything.

When you have trust and shared vision, you work with underperforming team members. You work on getting better at your job.

That doesn’t mean you let underperformance go on forever, but you do try to fix it before blowing things up.

We’ll see what happens next, but I don’t expect to see significant differences on the Husker coaching staff anytime soon.