Scott Frost Quotes - 8-21-22

Scott Frost
Nebraska Head Coach

Opening Statement
“Happy Sunday. We're excited right now. We've been in the middle of fall camp for a long time. And it can seem in the middle to end of fall camp like you're just practicing and stuck in a rut of practice. I think our players are really excited that we turned our attention now and it's officially game week. This trip has been a long time coming – a couple of years and a lot more time than that on preparation for this. We've been talking to our players a lot about handling this the right way and making sure it's a business trip. But if we have enough work done and feel confident enough with what we're doing going over there – the more confident we are about that, the more we can just enjoy another country, the culture over there, and still focus on the things that we need to get done while we're over there. I want to point a few people out. Andrew and Austin with our ops group – I can't tell you how much work they have had to do between airplanes and passports and hotels and cultural things. It's been a lot of work put in and we appreciate them. Jay Terry has a mountain of things to do to make sure that everybody has what they need over there, and we don't forget anything. Mark Mayer and his staff have been unbelievable, and Matt Heron and the video staff have to make sure everything's over there and functioning well. There's a lot that's going into this and our goal is to make sure the players can focus on just football and having a good time over there. I think this is going to be an unbelievable experience. I’d say the majority of our team has never been overseas, and I don't know how many will again. Hopefully a lot of them, but what a great country to go visit and see. I hope we get a lot out of this, the game obviously being the priority.
 
I want to touch on the offensive line things I said earlier this week. I was trying to portray how hard the offensive line had been working and how proud of them I am. I might have exaggerated puking a little bit. I want to make sure everybody understands, our training staff and weight staff do an unbelievable job of keeping me abreast of everything going on in practice. We have heart monitors, we know their complete output. We cut back practice if we think it's getting too hard or guys have spent too much. Our practices at this camp have been three on, one off, which is all an attempt to try to keep them healthy and fresh. I know a lot got made out of that. I can assure you between Mark and the weight staff and I, we're doing absolutely everything to keep these guys healthy. And that's our number one priority. 
 
I’m excited to announce captains. We announced that at the Boneyard Bash last night. We had the vote about a week and a half ago and there were a lot of guys that got votes, which is a good thing. I think that means we have a lot of leaders on the football team. But the four top vote-getters were Garrett (Nelson), Travis (Vokolek), Caleb (Tannor) and Nick (Henrich). I’m really proud of that group – where they've come from, what they've become and the leadership they're giving us. All four guys have graduated from the university already, including Nick, who graduated in three years. I’d say two and a half of them are more homegrown Nebraska kids, obviously Garrett and Nick, but Travis's family is from Lincoln too, and then Caleb is from Georgia. They're going to do a great job representing us. The leadership that they've shown in camp, along with about a dozen other guys, has been the best we've had. So, we’ve got big things ahead of us. I think our guys are really excited and we'll be getting on a plane in about 24 hours.”
 
On the first 24 hours in Ireland
“We've had more conversations than I can remember about this and the right way to do it. If you've traveled to Europe, I don't think there is a perfect way to do it. You're not going to feel perfect when you get over there. Some of the conversations with NFL teams that have gone over and played in London have been important. Our NAPL lab here and the expertise there has been really valuable for us, too. So, I want to give them a shout out. Flying overnight, I think the priority is making sure guys try to get to sleep on the plane. We're going to black it out about an hour after takeoff and try to get as much sleep as we can. Then we’ll land and see how long everything takes with taking them through customs. Then, we’re going straight to the stadium to get a little workout, try to knock some rust off, then head to the hotel. We’ll give them a little down time, and then we have dinner and a little cultural thing and we're going to try to get them back to sleep. And the goal is to try to make sure that when they wake up on Wednesday, they've had a really good night's sleep on Tuesday night and they're ready to pick up where we left off here.”
 
On preparing equipment for Ireland
“We hope we remembered everything. Anytime like this, if we were playing down the road somewhere, we could send somebody back or get something there. But we've been thinking about this for a long time. I don't think we're going to get caught without a mouthpiece or anything like that, but you just never know what's going to happen. I think Jay (Terry) was telling me that some of our crates for equipment went over there and all but two of them had a metal bottom, which was fine. Two of them had a wooden bottom on the bottom of the pallet and they couldn't ship out of Chicago, so we had to address that. It's little things like that, that you can't anticipate. I think everything we could have thought of, we thought of. Again, our goal is to make sure that players don't have to think about any of that; they can just have fun and focus on football.” 
 
On Casey Thompson’s experience
“I'd say the biggest thing I would point to with experience is lack of mistakes. Anytime you're a new player, there's more mistakes than somebody who’s had experience. A lot of quarterbacks played well in camp. I'd say Casey had the fewest turnovers and the fewest mistakes. I think experience is going to be even more important when you're going overseas to play in another country and a different environment. You know, this isn't a home game. This is a completely different thing, and he's played a lot of college football so I think the environment will be natural.”
 
On Thompson’s age
“Sure. I was smarter at 24 than I was at 18. And then I probably took a pause while I was in the NFL and didn’t get much smarter until my 30s. Life experience and game experience matters. You guys all know that. We have a more mature team than we've had – some of its age and some of it's just the character of the kids and the competitiveness of the kids. We definitely have the most guys on the team that I trust, this year than we've had.”
 
On the separation between Thompson and the rest of the quarterbacks
“We have a lot of talented guys, so I don't know if the talent gap is as big as the experience gap. Casey's played a lot of football and he's plenty talented to do everything that we need a quarterback to do, in the run game and in the pass game. I think that's going to be important for us early on here in the season.”
 
On the running back group
“That would be a good question for (Bryan) Applewhite. There’s some separation, I don't know. I think most of those guys are a little different. They have a little bit of a different skill set. But I've seen so much improvement over the guys that have been here, and they've been pushed by the new guys. I've said this before, I think this is the most talented and deepest group that we've had. So, we just need to play well.” 
 
On the lineup of the offensive staff
“We've been training for that for a while. Every time we get a chance, we put people up and (Mark Whipple) likes to call the game from the sidelines. I think it's going to help if I'm not staring at a play sheet. I can watch the defense more and see if I see things, and then try to be a help to him. We're going to try to have guys up that can give us as much information as we need to get in the right place and make adjustments.”
 
On the defense
“I think it's important to note that the culture on the defense has been growing for a while, and not a lot of change over there has helped us. The kids we recruited have really developed into the type of guy you want on your football team. We intentionally did it that way. I didn't want to just say there were two offensive guys and two defensive guys. We wanted to pick the four best leaders. There were several other offensive guys that got votes. There were several other defensive guys that got votes, but these four got the most, and I think along with some of those other guys I was talking about, they're going to provide good leadership for us.”
 
On last season’s game against Northwestern
“They are a much better team than that score indicated. I don’t know if we were as good as that score indicated. It was just one of those days and I have been on either side of that. I think that they’re going to be hungry again. I know how hungry our team is. There have been some things written about our team that have provided us a little extra motivation and could help us. There will be two teams that are hungry over there. We can’t go into the game with the exact same game plan and expect it to work. I’m sure they have been working on those things and I’m expecting a really good game.”
 
On blending new and returning players together as one team
“I couldn’t be happier with that piece and the meshing of these parts. We haven’t hit any adversity yet and I think the first test of that will be when we hit some adversity. This day and age with the ability to add transfers to your team I think it makes guys like Garrett Nelson, Nick Henrich, and I could go on, makes those guys even more valuable. We need to make sure our culture is in place and intact and strong. Then when you add new pieces, those guys come in and adopt that culture. You can’t have that balance go the wrong way or you can lose your team. The leadership on the team and the culture that already exists in the locker room is easy for the new guys coming in. I compliment them. They did a great job coming in and being a part of a team and not an individual. I’m really happy with where that sits."
 
On leadership on the offensive line
“Trent Hixson has been the lead guy, which is natural with the center making a lot of the calls. Broc Bando does a good job. We've got some young leaders that are going to be really good. Teddy (Prochazka) and Henry (Lutovsky), not leaving anyone out, and Turner (Corcoran) does a good job as well as several others. That is a really tight unit right now and like I said their work ethic has been unbelievable. I have seen a lot of improvement out of that group. I think they have a lot of pride and grit right now. Donnie (Offensive Line Coach Donovan Raiola) is doing a great job with them on their end. I think we have good leadership, and it will continue to improve.”
 
On the lower number of starting Blackshirts
“We have not given those out yet and that was from some operational issues. We had to pack jerseys, so we didn’t want them sweating in them and the shipment already left, so we’re going to give them out on our first day in Ireland. That has more to do with going overseas than anything else. We’ll make that announcement next week.”
 
On taking 15 transfers out of the portal
“I think that’s probably a high number, but we’ll have to see how it falls. I think we did a good job at adding talent but also addressing some areas of need. I compliment those guys and the guys on the team because there wasn’t a them-versus-us attitude. It was an 'us' attitude. I think there was also some added competition at positions because of people we brought in. It not only helped us from a standpoint of adding talent but getting more out of the guys that were here. They got pushed a little, and I think there will be a number every year, but I can’t guess that number.”
 
On changing offensive identity
“I think that right now we have a confident group to the point of some of the new guys for that. I think one of the best things about the changes that have been made is that we added a lot of really confident guys. I’d point to Trey Palmer, Marcus Washington. Some of those guys are almost confident to a fault and our offense needed a little injection of that. I think the coaches have done a good job with that and it adds a different feel to it. I wouldn’t say that the ‘x’ and ‘o’ identities have changed a lot, but the overall attitude has.”
 
On Casey Thompson
“He fits right into the thick of it.”
 
On running plays during camp
“It was good, and what you want in camp. I was able to stand back and watch the defense more. There were days when the defense got the better of it and days the offense scored a lot of points, and that’s what you want to see. If you have one side dominating all the time, then you have to worry about the other one. I saw good competition and I think we have improved in run-blocking. Some of that is having running backs that can make the offensive line look good, which helps. In this league, if you can’t run the ball then you’re making yourself one-dimensional. There are too many good defenses, so we need to be able to do more than one thing.”
 
On finding a balance between wanting to win and staying loose
“I have talked to the team about that, and I would say that this game matters as much as the week zero game last year. Looking back on it, I would say that we were a little too tight going into that game because everybody knew how much it mattered. We’re going to go out there and let it rip. I’m going to have more conversations with them about it. They have earned the right to be confident, and I’m sure Northwestern is too. I think they’re going to be a really good team this year, and I don't want the guys to worry about anything. We’re just going to go out there and play the best football we can and try to make great plays.”
 
On Caleb Tannor
“Caleb is one of the guys when he first got here, and this is a compliment that he was on a lot of lists for missing things and being late. I have seen very few guys that have come as far as he has come, and it speaks more to where he is now than to where he had started. We had a lot of guys that have to figure some things out, and Caleb has become a perfect teammate and a good leader. That’s awesome to see and that’s one of the things that makes coaching very rewarding. To see a young man turn into the man Caleb is.”
 
On exposure of the Ireland game
“We’re starting the season off so, I’m sure if I wasn’t coaching, I would be dying to watch college football, and I’m sure there will be a lot of eyes on it. We’re excited that we can represent the conference. I’m really proud of the conference right now and some of the moves we’ve made with the leadership and some of the things we’ve done to get ahead and stay ahead for a long time.”
 
On advice going into the next game
“We’ve talked to a lot of people, and I don’t know if we can point to one thing but we need to be able to lock in when we need to lock in in general. I think it would be a mistake to go over there and have the guys’ mind on football 24/7. That is when you do get tight. We’re going to try and enjoy the people and the country and when it's time to focus I want the guys to be sharp and focused. I’ve met a lot of Irish people in my life and they’re awesome to be around. I haven’t met them all, because there is obviously a lot, but the ones I have met have been funny and friendly. I said on the radio that the people of Nebraska and the people of Ireland is going to be a fun mix, and I’m excited for the fans going over there as well.”
 

NU Athletic Communications