For Frost, player safety and well-being have always been No. 1

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As Nebraska’s football players enter the North Stadium weight room today for the first time since March, head coach Scott Frost will tell you it has not been an easy road to get to this point.

The Huskers will be one of only a few schools in the country that will have athletes training back in an on-campus weight room on Monday.

“Our first and my first primary focus through this whole thing has been the safety and well-being of our players,” Frost told HuskerOnline and one other media outlet. “Everything we've been doing is trying to provide the safest environment possible for all of our roster. When you are talking about a roster of about 150, there's a ton of work that's gone into that. Our second priority is the safety and well-being of this community and the state.

“I'm a football coach in Nebraska, but I'm a Nebraskan first. Every kid on our roster is in different circumstances, so for some kids, being at home through this entire thing was the best solution. They were safe, they had enough to eat, they were healthy, they had places to work out and do things that they want to do, and young guys are going to do whatever they can. We had a lot of our roster where the safest and healthiest place for them to be was Lincoln, Nebraska. Guys from towns that weren't as safe, guys that didn't have good nutrition or enough to eat at home, guys that were living in bad circumstances at home with too many people in the house, guys that needed academic help that they couldn't necessarily get enough of it online if they were away from here, guys with injuries that needed rehab.

“We've had to really work and Gerrod (Lambrecht) and Andrew Sims have done an unbelievable job of making sure that we know where every kid is and that we're providing them the best possible environment for every one of those kids. Well, for a lot of those kids that was here in Lincoln.”

Over the past 75 days, Frost and his support staff have diligently put together a return plan for their players that involved a detailed account of their travel history. From there, they were immediately quarantined for 48-hours in an on-campus dormitory before eventually being tested for COVID-19. Not until an athlete tests negative for COVID-19 are they allowed to use or access on-campus facilities. Frost said around 30 of his players never left Lincoln this entire time. Today, he will have roughly “98 percent” of his returning players back in Lincoln.

As you see NU’s players enter North Stadium on Monday with protective masks and undergoing temperature checks, each one of them will have already gone through the full quarantine and testing process. Perhaps no other school in the country has been this far in front of dealing with the return of a roster than Nebraska.

“This is not the time for us to be pounding our chest and talking about what we've done to get us to this point,” Frost said. “Now is the time for additional vigilance as we go into this transition period that we handle it appropriately so that things can continue to progress.”

So, what is that next step? Could we see spring practices given back to schools? That remains doubtful at this point.

It is something, though, that Frost has had a conversation with Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren about.

“(Warren) was on our campus about a week before we got shut down and we saw this coming,” Frost said. “He was actually working out in our staff weight room over here in the Hawks, and I went in and we had a really nice conversation, he was awesome and I asked him then: ‘If we get shutdown, are we going to get our spring practices back even if it’s later?’ And he guaranteed me we would.

“Now, a lot has changed since then. I haven’t heard a lot of talk about getting those practices back, but now that some schools are getting their kids back as early as June 1, I have heard a little bit of a pickup in those conversations. I’m kind of doubtful that that will happen, because not everybody in the country will be back at the same time and ready to do those things.”

The next hot-topic of discussion has been a six-week run-up to the start of the 2020 season. In Nebraska’s case, that would mean opening Fall Camp by July 27.

With most teams getting their players on campus by June 1 to July 1, Frost sees no reason to worry about a July 27 open to Fall Camp.

“We are going to be ready to go, because if we have our kids back and doing some activity on June 1, our kids are going to be ready for a regular camp if the situation in the country allows us to do that,” Frost said. “What’s interesting, and has been interesting to me the whole time is, the situation is different in every university and every state, and the number of people that are involved in those types of decisions is staggering. Every governor, every mayor, every university president, every Board of Regents, every AD - because some state guidelines might be different than other states’ guidelines.

“The situations in states are different, some university presidents might have school in the fall, some might not have school in the fall, and then you have to decide if you’re going to have football without school. There’s just so many people involved in this decision, it’s going to be really hard to make a one-size-fits-all decision on anything.”

Without strong leadership and support from people like University of Nebraska President Ted Carter and Chancellor Ronnie Green, getting to this point would have been very difficult.

Both Carter and Green have been big on moving things forward for the University to have a fall semester with students on campus.

This past week they made one slight adjustment, moving the start date up to Aug. 17, which allows the fall semester to end the week of Thanksgiving. They’ve also eliminated fall break and a day off on Labor Day.

All of this was done to prevent students possibly traveling cross country over the months of November and December.

Over this entire period, Frost has even had talks with Governor Pete Ricketts about the state of things around Nebraska.

“We’ve gotten unbelievable support for everything we've done from a lot of people,” Frost said. “I’ve had conversations with Ted Carter, Ronnie (Green), Bill Moos, and even with Pete Ricketts.

“Usually, my conversations with him are just checking in on him to make sure he's alive through all this and a few questions just about state health ordinances to make sure that our plans are in line with what the state and the city are recommending. More than anything I've talked to him just to offer support.”

Phase 2 of those guidelines started on Monday, allowing weight rooms to have 25 people - or 50 percent of your overall capacity - in a workout facility. Nebraska will start with groups of 20 athletes or less in the weight room on Monday, saving space for medical staff and strength coaches for each lifting session.

As Frost looks at the big picture of his players returning to campus today, he knows it is another step closer to normalcy.

With everything currently going on in the world, that should not be taken for granted.

Frost also is well aware of what college football means to this state.

“I don't think that a lot of people realize how important football is to our community and to all the other communities around the country,” Frost said. “If you think about the businesses in Lincoln that we support and that make a big part of what they make off Saturdays in the fall, it's important for them.

“You see other universities cutting sports already, without home game revenues and a full football season this fall. Every athletic department's budget is going to take such a hit and the people in danger are the non-revenue generating sports. This is important for a lot of reasons other than just a bunch of guys that want to play football.”

Frost added he hears those words expressed by many in the state.

“I know some guys that own restaurants and bars on O Street and people that run hotels, and a big percentage of their yearly revenue comes from the spring game and home football games in Nebraska, and even away games where people show up to watch,” Frost said. “I think they're just as concerned as we are that we can have football in some fashion.”