Husker Dan: “May The Frost Be With You”

December 3, 2017 will be remembered as the day the Nebraska football program started to climb out of the morass it has been stuck in for the past 16 years.  Here are some inspirational moments to get us all fired up.

(Sorry for the rough language)

I know I wasn’t the only long time Husker fan who had moist eyes watching the Bill Moos/Scott Frost press conference yesterday.

Frost looked like the guy in charge.  He looked the part of a coach who knows what to do and how to do it.  His message was one of work, dedication, honor, intensity, passion and accountability.  And not surprisingly, he emphasized the need for doing things the right way.

Oh, and having fun.

If the last one seems a bit out of place, it isn’t.  What it does show is what Frost is all about.  Winning is fun.  Hard work fun?  But in order to win, there must be great sacrifice.  The fun comes later.

That so many of his former teammates and long time Husker lettermen cared enough to attend Sunday’s “crowning” of Husker head coach, Scott Frost, speaks volumes about how much former players care about the future of the Nebraska football program.

And current Husker players were there, too, trying to get a handle on who this “new” guy is.  Also in attendance was former Husker head football coach and Frost mentor, Tom Osborne.

I caught two interviews Coach Osborne did Sunday and I couldn’t believe the tone of his voice. Or rather the pitch of it.  He sounded 20 years younger.

Do you think Osborne is proud of his protege?  Is he excited that his student is taking his rightful place as the 30th Nebraska head football coach?

Well, duh!

It was a mild surprise that no one bothered to ask Frost about winning games or earning championships in the coming years.  And no one asked him how his defense would hold up in the Big Ten.

But Frost was asked about how his offense might have to adapt to the B1G teams.  His reply got the biggest reaction of the day.

“We’re hoping that they’ll have to adapt to our offense,” Coach Frost said.

Cocky?  No.  Was his response similar to Bill Callahan’s when he came to Nebraska?  If you will recall when Callahan was asked about the offense he’d be running at Nebraska, his prickly response was, “We’ll take what they (defenses) give us.”

I’ll take Frost’s response any day.

Frost is the real deal. but is he tough enough?  Can Frost put up with the pressures and demands of Husker fans?  He was a great player for the Huskers, but will he be able to coach Nebraska to national prominence?

Yes on all counts.

When Frost returned to Lincoln after his two years at Stanford (’93-’94) he had to prove he belonged at Nebraska.  And when he did return, he suffered the wrath of the Husker defense when he ran the scout team in ’95.

Back then, Scott Frost was considered by some to be a traitor for leaving Nebraska and a bandwagon fan when he returned.  (That was after Nebraska played in two national championship games while Scott was at Stanford.)  Jason Peter said that every day of practice in Frost’s redshirt year, he and his buddies on defense did everything they could to get Frost to quit.  The verbal and physical assaults on Frost were never ending.  Each day, Peter was sure it was going to be Frost’s last day. But every day, there was Frost back at practice.  Every time he was shoved down and stomped upon, he would get back up.

He never quit.  Not once. Never.

All he did was come back for more.  And guess what happened?  He earned the respect of every one of his teammates.

Is Scott Frost tough enough?

Scott Frost is tougher than a two dollar steak.

He’s tougher than a one-eared alley cat.

My favorite?  He’s tougher than a boiled owl.  I repeat, Scott Frost is tougher than a boiled owl.  (Thanks, Ken.)

There are probably some people who still hold a grudge against Frost for turning down Tom Osborne’s offer to play at Nebraska.

So why did he turn down Osborne’s offer?  How could he do that to Tom Osborne?  It was the allure of the NFL.  Frost wanted to play QB in the NFL and outside of maybe Vince Ferragamo, Osborne didn’t have much of a history of producing NFL quarterbacks.

Bill Walsh came back to Stanford after coaching Joe Montana to several NFL Super Bowl titles.  Walsh wanted to help Frost reach his NFL dreams.

And when Frost was making his decision in 1992, Nebraska was running the triple option.   And leading the Husker attack was none other than Tommie Frazier.  And that year, Nebraska lost games to Washington, Iowa State (gulp!) and Florida State in the Orange Bowl.

Frost couldn’t have known that over the next two years, Nebraska would play in two NC games and that Tom Osborne would get his first NC in ’94.

And had Frost come to Nebraska,  we probably would never have known just how great Frazier’s backup, Brook Berringer, would be.  Talk about a loaded QB position that would have been!

And just as his character did in Thomas Hardy’s novel, “The Return of the Native”, so did Nebraska’s native son, Scott Frost come back.

This time, the boiled owl is home.

You may contact the writer at  [email protected]