Final take: Frost’s confidence steals the room on Monday

CHICAGO – If I could describe Scott Frost’s first Big Ten Media Days in one word, it would be “confidence.”

However, what makes Frost’s overall presentation unique is there’s a level of genuineness to it. He doesn’t need to wear silly glasses, oddly colored pants or scream and yell to get his message across. Instead, Frost tells you exactly how it is, and he backs it up with a playing and coaching resume very few in today’s college football game can match.

On Monday, I thought Frost’s strongest statement was on where Nebraska is now, and where they are heading.

“We’ll see how this first year goes, but people better get us now, because we are going to keep getting better,” Frost said.

It’s blunt confidence like this that has made Frost successful in everything he’s done in his entire life.

Frost knows and understands the culture of Nebraska better than any coach since Frank Solich and Tom Osborne. He believes in the blueprint laid down by Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne that Wisconsin has duplicated under Barry Alvarez.

“They’ve been out-Nebraskaing Nebraska, and we’re here to fix that,” Frost said of the Badgers and the current state of the Big Ten West.

I’ve been to Big Ten Media Days the last nine years now, and you could feel the rest of the media in the conference buy into what Frost was saying.

Countless media colleagues from across the conference said: “You guys have the right guy there.”

Even watching Athletic Director Bill Moos stand in the back of the room on Monday watching Frost, he had a look on his face of “this is why I made this move.”

The other thing Frost does that makes his style unique is he effectively embraces Nebraska’s history.

It’s not lip service. The history and tradition of this program are what make Nebraska special. Frost noted that NU, Colorado and Oregon are the only three programs in the last 25 years to compete in the national title discussion not located in a recruiting hotbed.

“We aren’t going to run from the past, and I got the impression from afar for quite a few years recently Nebraska has abandoned the past and turned it’s back on the past,” Frost said. “I said this publicly that if you have an organization or company that’s the best in its sector for 25 years, then it underperforms for the next 10 to 15 and doesn’t perform to the same level, you are crazy not to look back at what made that company the best in its field for as long as Nebraska was the best college football. We need to get a lot of those things back. We are going to embrace it, we are going to embrace ex-players, we are going to adopt some of the same ideas and try to get the program back to close to where it was when Coach Osborne was around.”

Frost’s competitive nature is also something that has rubbed off on the players. He’s not afraid to go the weight room and lift with guys.

Senior offensive lineman Jerald Foster said his approach is something all of the guys have fed off.

“Confidence spreads, just like his competitiveness,” Foster said. “(Frost’s) personality is what’s going to be the culture of this team. That’s what you get – whatever coach you have. Their personality is the personality of the team. Coach Frost has made it where competitive nature is what we do every single day. I love it. We do it in everything.

“If it’s not who lifts the most or runs the fastest, it’s who does the most outreach events. Who’s the first person to get done with their meeting list. It’s always something. He always has fun with it. That makes it when you are doing stuff that you don’t want to do you can find the fun in it. From a confidence standpoint, that was something we didn’t have last year, and I feel like that plagued us.”

***As far as gains in the weight room this summer, Foster said there are currently five players that have 765-pound three-rep squat maxes on the team. Offensive linemen Tanner Farmer and John Raridon, and defensive linemen Khalil Davis, Carlos Davis and Freedom Akinmoladun.

Foster said it's crazy to see how much the bar bends when there's that type of weight on it.

And for all you "squat-gate" people, Frost said once again on Monday that NU didn't do regular heavy squatting the last three years.

***One of the key pieces Frost brought with him from UCF was Chief of Staff Gerrod Lambrecht. The Wood River native manages all of the day-to-day non-football issues with the program and brings with him a background in the business world that looks more like a CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

"It's a mistake to have a (Director of Football Operations) that wants to be a coach," Frost said.

He added Lambrecht helps him manage all the elements off the field that he may not want to deal with, which allows him to focus more on football.

***Frost called out his secondary a little bit on Monday, saying the addition of UCF transfer Tre Neal should help fix the culture of their defensive back room.

Multiple sources have told me that's the one position group that has the furthest to go both on and off the field. Neal was also in a position where he wasn't going to start at UCF this season according to Frost, so coming to Nebraska was a perfect situation for him.

Sean Callahan can be reached at sean@huskeronline.com and he can be heard each day at 6:45 am and 5:05 pm on Big Red Radio 1110 KFAB in Omaha during the football season. He can also be seen on KETV Channel 7 in Omaha during the fall and each week he appears on NET's Big Red Wrap-Tuesday's at 7 pm.