Return of Scott Frost

[Pipe Line]

It’s hard to critique S&C when 99.9% of fans aren’t actually aware of what’s going on behind the curtain.

That said, what I was allowed to see during his tenure wasn’t really to my liking.

I don’t think there is anything wrong at all with a conventional approach to strength training. That said, we have to be looking at new techniques and advancements other more recently successful schools are employing and determine what role their S&C played in that success as well as being honest about where we were from a performance standpoint on the field and how that relates to our S&C program.

I’d rather see on field dominance and fourth quarter’s we own at least partially attributable to our S&C versus bad Twitter videos in the off season.

He's very much an old school guy. The family is very much old school in the S&C world. Personally, I'm a big fan of those philosophies. At a basic level, I know that Husker Power Program like the back of my hand. Flexibility isn't exactly super high on the totem pole. Postural Restoration is the Duval version/Eppley version of flexibility. I still do Postural Restoration a decade later.

That being said, nothing wrong with modernizing the weight room and trying to be functional while also trying to the biggest dude in the room.

 

[Pipe Line]

I'm sure he is not that bad. As many have said before he was probably only doing what Frost wanted getting dudes big as fast as possible.

I've said this a few times in the past and I'll say it again, I don't believe Frost's offense was built to mesh well with the old school Husker Power weight room results that he also wanted. That "marriage" he always talked about sounded great on paper or in speeches, but didn't seem to work well on the field when applied.


Also, hard to be massive and also in shape along the D-Line, especially from the negatives we saw from that offense.

 

[Pipe Line]

I give up. What are his principles?

Big
Strong
Explosive
Fast


The "fast" that is coached is like 10 and 40 yard dash fast. The SAQ and Conditioning that is done in that program is a lot of combine work


Flexibility isn't that high on the list

 

[Quint]

He's very much an old school guy. The family is very much old school in the S&C world. Personally, I'm a big fan of those philosophies. At a basic level, I know that Husker Power Program like the back of my hand. Flexibility isn't exactly super high on the totem pole. Postural Restoration is the Duval version/Eppley version of flexibility. I still do Postural Restoration a decade later.

That being said, nothing wrong with modernizing the weight room and trying to be functional while also trying to the biggest dude in the room.

I’m still pretty much an old school guy in the gym myself, so I get it. I’m not starting over with anything, but that is likely part of why I’m not nearly as flexible as I should be and why shit hurts.

To the bolded, what I saw was too much of a ‘one size fits all’ approach that included weight gain, and in a lot of cases bad weight gain. All athletes are different and at what point even the addition of muscle decreases their efficacy to play a certain sport or position is different. I found my point of diminished returns and I believe everyone has that point. I don’t think we did a great job of figuring that out for all of our guys.

To be fair, no one can say we failed in that arena with ALL of the players. We had a few that it worked well with, including one who’ll be playing in his first Pro Bowl in February.

 

[Pipe Line]

I’m still pretty much an old school guy in the gym myself, so I get it. I’m not starting over with anything, but that is likely part of why I’m not nearly as flexible as I should be and why shit hurts.

To the bolded, what I saw was too much of a ‘one size fits all’ approach that included weight gain, and in a lot of cases bad weight gain. All athletes are different and at what point even the addition of muscle decreases their efficacy to play a certain sport or position is different. I found my point of diminished returns and I believe everyone has that point. I don’t think we did a great job of figuring that out for all of our guys.

To be fair, no one can say we failed in that arena with ALL of the players. We had a few that it worked well with, including one who’ll be playing in his first Pro Bowl in February.

For sure. It's ironic because I remember Frost on a few occasions say things that pointed back to the old days and how each athlete was taken care of specifically with their own plan for their own best results and what not. If you want to talk about very small details starting at the top and going down the chain, those small details with such a large roster may have gotten pushed to the side now that we know that Frost wasn't a giant stickler on every single program detail as time went on. Circumstances were obviously different back then with an established program compared to not fully established a half decade ago.


I will say with my own powerlifting weight gain in my mid to late 20s, keeping any sort of SAQ and conditioning from my baseball playing days would have been impossible. I didn't train it or make it a priority at all, but doing high rep sets was enough of a challenge at the time lol let alone anything SAQ/Conditioning related.

I still wish Frost would have gone with a more Matt Rhule like offense, philosophically, to match what he wanted from Duval, to see what could have been with those weight room gains.

 

[Irv]

I’m looking for the evidence that Frost changed during his “time away.” Is it that he decided to bet on Grinch? Seems like this guy would just run it back with the whole old crew if that were feasible.

 

[Quint]

I’m looking for the evidence that Frost changed during his “time away.” Is it that he decided to bet on Grinch? Seems like this guy would just run it back with the whole old crew if that were feasible.

If UCF was still in the AAC, I could understand his thinking. It worked once. Maybe.

Being that he’s in a different conference with a different level of competition, I’d think he’d take a different approach.

 

[Pipe Line]

Is he going to call plays again or is his OC going to do that?

 

[Snockered69]

Is he going to call plays again or is his OC going to do that?

He gets to call the opening offensive series, might have been his only quality while here.

 

[lee_carvallo_12]

If UCF was still in the AAC, I could understand his thinking. It worked once. Maybe.

Being that he’s in a different conference with a different level of competition, I’d think he’d take a different approach.

This. He's entering a vastly different situation than what he left. AAC vs Big 12, Unlimited transfer portal vs restricted transfers. NIL (legal booster money) vs illegal/limited under the table booster money. If ScoFro is just trying to "run it back" the same way he did it in 2017, it ain't gonna work.

 

[lee_carvallo_12]

He gets to call the opening offensive series, might have been his only quality while here.

You're right. He was actually really good at scripting plays for the opening series.

 

[Jim14510]

This. He's entering a vastly different situation than what he left. AAC vs Big 12, Unlimited transfer portal vs restricted transfers. NIL (legal booster money) vs illegal/limited under the table booster money. If ScoFro is just trying to "run it back" the same way he did it in 2017, it ain't gonna work.

Big 12 2024 = AAC 2017

 

[BIG TONE SOPRANO]

How stupid is Duval lol. Well, I guess it makes more money than growing a 3 foot beard and working out at Lifetime in Omaha

 

[Red Finger]

Is Duval related to Spike?

 

[Quint]

Big 12 2024 = AAC 2017

The Big 12 is not the Big 12 of old, but I’d still slot it above the AAC in Frost’s last year at UCF.

 

[CornFed Gregger]

The Big 12 is not the Big 12 of old, but I’d still slot it above the AAC in Frost’s last year at UCF.

There’s a lot more quality coaches in the big 12.

Frost couldn’t beat Kirk Ferentz with Brian coaching the offense & Frost’s laid back style of coaching doesn’t work against guys who are managing/controlling every facet of their team. Need to be more than a good playcaller & his predecessor was pretty good, won a natty & still only had 4-6 wins

 

[Bulldog10]

There’s a lot more quality coaches in the big 12.

Frost couldn’t beat Kirk Ferentz with Brian coaching the offense & Frost’s laid back style of coaching doesn’t work against guys who are managing/controlling every facet of their team. Need to be more than a good playcaller & his predecessor was pretty good, won a natty & still only had 4-6 wins

Have you forgotten that Frost also won a Natty?

 

[CornFed Gregger]

Have you forgotten that Frost also won a Natty?

It was real to me in 2018

 

[Quint]

There’s a lot more quality coaches in the big 12.

Frost couldn’t beat Kirk Ferentz with Brian coaching the offense & Frost’s laid back style of coaching doesn’t work against guys who are managing/controlling every facet of their team. Need to be more than a good playcaller & his predecessor was pretty good, won a natty & still only had 4-6 wins

It’ll be an interesting second stint for him in Orlando.

I think he’s likely going to have a much easier go of it from a recruiting standpoint, but he still needs to show that he can put in the work in game prep and figure out how to make in game adjustments after his script runs out. He either hires the right staff that doesn’t need a lot of in game management or he’s in trouble. I’m assuming he didn’t just forget how to coach offense, so that should be a strength. To your point, he’s going against a pretty decent group of coaches, with decent players.

What his first two years looks like will likely be all we need to see.