Notebook: Lots of questions still remain, but Frost ready for Oct. 24

The last 40 days have not been easy for anyone associated with the Nebraska football program, but particularly head coach Scott Frost.

Last Wednesday, when NU officially got word they were going to play in 2020, around that same time Frost just found out he lost his father Larry who had been battling cancer.

“It was a tough day,” Frost said on the Husker Sports Network Thursday night. “The day they announced (the schedule) dad died. We are just excited to be playing. I think we made a bad mistake deciding what we decided when we did as a league. It looked for a long time they weren’t going to revisit that at all. I’m just glad we are going to get a chance to let our kids play football this year.”

Right as Frost was speaking Thursday, we also learned the Pac-12 is coming back to play a seven-game schedule starting on Nov. 6-7.

Both the Mountain West and MAC are also expected to follow, meaning all 10 FBS leagues will be back up and running by November.

It's been that kind of 40 days. Probably the most challenging 40 days and off-season any coach will face in our lifetime.

“They are just excited to play,” Frost said of his team. “We’ve been lifting and running and doing individual drills for so long. Our guys are just anxious to get out there. We kept telling them we thought there was a chance and we should know something. There were a lot of times I didn’t know what to tell the guys because I didn’t know.

"There was a lot of uncertainty, a lot of frustration, but through it all our guys worked really hard and kept trying to get better. We are anxious to get the pads on. It sounds like maybe we are going to have a chance to get the pads on the 30th next Wednesday. I hope that happens. We haven’t had shoulder pads on since November of last year. We are anxious to take that step and get the guys in pads and getting to blocking and tackling again. I’m just looking forward to competing.”

NU's players have had plenty of time together since May, as nearly all of the roster was back in Lincoln by that point.

What's made it challenging, though, is managing all the different rules and the ups and downs this off-season brought.

Now, the next step will be putting on pads Sept. 30.

“It’s going to be a matter of getting our guys into football shape and used to contact again,” Frost said. “Through this whole process half the time we were doing everything we could, but it wasn’t as much as we wanted to be doing. There were some other times I’m not sure anyone in the league knew what we were supposed to be doing. We were stuck in a period of running and lifting much longer than we should have. We were stuck in a period of being able to do everything but 11-on-11 longer than we should have.

"Once we decided to cancel football as a league, people on a committee made up from teams that were playing, decided what we could and couldn’t do. Since we didn’t have any games scheduled, we were very limited on what we could do with our guys. We’ve been able to solve a whole bunch of issues with our guys and doing the best we could this whole time. I think we’ve handled it about as well as anybody could have.”

The next step will be managing COVID-19 and all the protocols the new Big Ten daily antigen testing program will bring with it.

NU has already begun testing its athletes with their own antigen testing, and the Big Ten will begin theirs next week.

The league will have a lot more rules and regulations around positive tests, and that has everyone's attention.

“We are to the point where the kids aren’t afraid of getting the virus. They are afraid of getting the virus and having to sit out,” Frost said. “I think that’s probably where most college students are and most college athletes are right now. That’s probably the biggest motivation for our guys to make sure they are making smart decisions off the field to make sure they have an opportunity to compete.”

***Over the last three weeks, Frost admits he really didn't watch much college football.

“It was hard for me to watch college football when I knew we weren’t playing. Certainly, being able to watch some of the guys I coached in the NFL was a little easier for me to do. Now that we have a game on the schedule, we are focused on what we are doing.”

***One thing Frost doesn't know is what type of rules, if any, the Big Ten might put in place in terms of active roster size.

NU carries over 150 players on their roster, and he hopes the league doesn't come in and put a cap on their 2020 roster size.

“I hope not, I haven’t heard that answer yet for sure,” Frost said. “Again, a lot of these rules seem to not benefit us at all. Having a larger roster is a Nebraska tradition, and it’s been an important part of being around here. We have a lot of rules – Title IX and others that help ensure kids an opportunity to be able to do what they love to do and to compete. It would be a real shame to have to tell a number of our guys that they can’t be a part of the team for the fall. We are waiting to hear final answers on some of those things.”

***Frost hasn't given much thought yet into naming captains for this season.

“We’ve had so many other hurdles to jump over," Frost said. "Through a lot of this time, we’ve had to have a lot of captain-led workouts and captain-led practices. A lot of stuff was optional, so we couldn’t tell the guys to be there. There were certainly leaders on the team that expected everybody else to be at those things. I think it really has helped some leadership emerge, and hopefully, that leadership benefits us during the season.”

***When asked if Nebraska played a factor in bringing football back in the Big Ten, Frost said a lot of people had an impact on the final decision.

“At the very least, I think that kept the conversation going and put some pressure on some people to revisit that decision,” Frost said. “I’m glad we landed in a place where the kids get to play football.”