Dear Andy: On Scott Frost's struggles, Ed Orgeron’s housecleaning, UNC-Va. Tech and Urban Meyer's decision
Would Meyer have had the same success at Notre Dame as he did at Florida? Probably not, which shows Brian Kelly has done a great job.
theathletic.com
From Andy Staples weekly mailbag at The Athletic
I'm surprised by Scott Frost's lack of success at Nebraska. He was in high demand and it makes me wonder if he would've had more success at a different school. Along those lines, I remember when Urban Meyer picked Florida over Notre Dame even though ND was his dream job. Do you think Urban would've had the same level of success at ND as UF? -- David from Moultrie, GA
Andy Staples: I covered Florida for the Tampa Tribune (RIP) when Ron Zook was fired and Meyer was hired, so I've had multiple conversations with Meyer and the people who hired him about that decision. His affinity for Notre Dame wasn't something that he planted just because he suspected that job was about to open. He loved working at the school, and he did dream of being the head coach there one day. But when Meyer had the chance to take the Notre Dame job after an undefeated season at Utah in 2004, then-Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley had just spent two days in Salt Lake City laying out the path for Meyer to lead the Gaytors to national titles.
This is where Meyer having already worked as an assistant at Notre Dame probably worked against the Fighting Irish. He knew it was more difficult to get players into school and more difficult to keep them eligible because Notre Dame -- unlike a certain large state university from which I happen to hold a degree -- didn't have any dramatically easier majors than others. Meyer knew the state of Florida was loaded with players and that Florida State and Miami were trending down after being nearly unbeatable at the turn of the century.
So Meyer made a cold, clear-eyed decision to take the job at the place where it would be easier to win a national title. And then he won two of them in his first four seasons at the school. Would he have been successful at Notre Dame? Absolutely, because he is a great recruiter and motivator. Would he have been as successful at Notre Dame? No. Because he would have been fishing in a shallower recruiting pond. (This, by the way, is why I think Brian Kelly has done a marvelous job post-2016. Recruiting didn't get any easier at Notre Dame. Kelly and his staff have the program near its ceiling.)
Frost is a different story. Meyer had already shown at Bowling Green and at Utah that he could radically improve a program. Frost had done it once at UCF, taking a Knights program that went 0-12 the season before he arrived and going 13-0 in his second season. The revisionist history holds that Frost succeeded with George O'Leary's players. But that's only partially true.
Yes, the team was sick of O'Leary in 2015 and didn't want to play for him anymore. And yes, there were some obviously good players on the roster (cornerback Shaquill Griffin, for instance) when Frost took over. But Frost and his staff found hidden gems on the roster. Shaquill's twin brother Shaquem was languishing far down the depth chart as a safety, and Frost's staff turned Shaquem into a dynamo as an outside linebacker. Frost also brought the 2017 team's most important player to Orlando. Frost noticed McKenzie Milton at an Oregon camp while Frost was an assistant in Eugene, and Frost wanted the Ducks to sign Milton in the class of 2016. That scholarship instead went to a local QB named Justin Herbert. (You might have heard of him.) When Frost got the head coaching job at UCF, he signed Milton. Without Milton, there is no 13-0. Frost's staff also landed speedster Adrian Killins, defensive tackle Trysten Hill and safety Richie Grant shortly after getting to Orlando. There appeared to be an eye for underappreciated talent that hasn't yet manifested itself at Nebraska.
I'm as guilty as anyone of assuming Frost's success at UCF would translate elsewhere, and his utter lack of success at Nebraska is downright mystifying. He did jump up in competition, but it certainly isn't unreasonable to expect a coach who went 13-0 with a team from the American to at least crack .500 once in his first three seasons in the Big Ten. He doesn't have to win the league, but he does need to make progress, and the season-opening loss to Illinois suggests very little progress has been made. Despite recruiting rankings that top the Big Ten West for that time period, Frost hasn't been able to develop those players into even an average team and has yet to establish a schematic identity. Frost has a quarterback (Adrian Martinez) who is a dynamic runner but an average passer, but sometimes Cornhuskers coaches call games as if those traits are reversed.
This lack of identity is even more glaring in a division that includes Wisconsin's Paul Chryst, Cockeye's Kirk Ferentz and Northwestern's Pat Fitzgerald, who frequently take lower-ranked recruiting classes and win consistently because they have established clear schematic identities for their programs and are excellent at identifying and signing players who fit those identities.
Nebraska doesn't necessarily have to go back to the option. Nor does it need to copy Wisconsin or Cockeye's slower-paced, downhill-run attacks that rely on coaches identifying and developing future NFL linemen. But the Cornhuskers need to decide on a coherent identity and recruit to it. Unfortunately, that isn't something that can be done overnight. It is something that should have been done in four seasons, which is why Nebraska may be seeking a new coach if the Cornhuskers don't miraculously improve.
