Frost addresses Gebbia, future of quarterback position
If Scott Frost had a mulligan, he probably would’ve handled his quarterback situation differently he said on Tuesday.
When Frost announced freshman Adrian Martinez his starter over the weekend, he had no idea it would lead to the domino effect of where they are at now. Redshirt freshman Tristan Gebbia was released from his scholarship on Tuesday after being named the back-up, leaving the Huskers with two walk-ons behind Martinez heading into the 2018 season.
“Having a walk-on true freshman from the Lou-Platte Conference as our third-teamer is not where we thought we’d land,” Frost said on Tuesday’s Big Ten Coaches Conference Call.
As Frost looks at how the Gebbia situation played out, he said on Tuesday there was no turning back once he announced he was leaving.
Frost hates to see Gebbia move on, but that’s the college football world we live in today.
“All I’ll say is we want what’s best for him,” Frost said of Gebbia. “He made the decision with his family what was best for him, and we are going to wish him the best. There was no changing his mind when he came in.”
Junior cornerback Lamar Jackson also spoke on Gebbia’s departure following Tuesday’s practice.
The California native was very close to Gebbia and his family and said it was tough to see him leave, but he understands the decision he made.
“I am and friends with his family and everything like that. Even through the battle during the spring, he would ask me ‘how he was doing’ and say, ‘I’m nervous, I’m nervous,’” Jackson said of Gebbia. “I’m pretty sure this wasn’t something that just happened. He probably kind of had this in his head. I mean at the same time, at the position, Adrian is a year younger than him. Even though Tristan is a good quarterback, everybody wants to play at the end of the day, even though they say, ‘team before yourself.’
“Everybody has an ego, and they want to be on the field. He was probably like ‘I’ve got to play, and Adrian is younger than me.’ There was a chance he could be a back-up forever, so I can’t really fault him, but at the same time we have to rock with Adrian, because that’s who’s here and that’s who we are balling with. I’m sad Tristan is gone though. I love Tristan.”
As for the quarterback position going forward, Frost said initially they had moved on from trying to file a waiver to get UCF transfer Noah Vedral ruled immediately eligible, but they are now aggressively perusing it again with the most recent news of Gebbia’s departure.
“We are working on it, and that’s all I can say,” Frost said. “I don’t know where it will land. I just hope in the big picture that college football doesn’t become transfer mania. It’s hard to manage as a coach, you do what you can for kids. I understand their perspective that they want to play. It would be hypocritical of me to say how much we care about the players, and then not allow somebody to do what they want to do or allow what’s best for them. On the flipside of that, we preach to our guys ‘team before me,’ and it would be hypocritical to allow somebody on the team that’s ‘me before team.’ Sometimes those things are going to work out the way this just worked out, and we’ve got to do our best as coaches to manage this situation.”
If anything, Frost learned over this last month that transfers can happen at any time, and in Gebbia’s case the last possible day it could’ve happened.
“We certainly would’ve managed the situation different if we knew somebody was going to leave right before the first game,” Frost said. “We’ve had a couple of quarterbacks leave now, and I’m sure they are filing waivers for initial eligibility and immediate eligibility. Noah’s situation is no different. He wanted to be closer to his parents and had some family things he wanted to get back for. He wasn’t going to play at the other place because of the kid that they had. We’ll keep fighting the fight, but we are going to roll with what we have, and we have all the confidence that we have in the other kids that are here.”