So, Dead Read, How’s Nebraska Football Going?

To begin with, the other Nebraska “writers” contributed articles entitled Nebraska Football 2022: What exactly are we doing here? and B1G 2022 // Men Ain’t S*** - A Look at the State of Nebraska Athletics. This context should tell you something.

So, Dead Read, how’s Nebraska football going?

For my own well-being, I have repressed substantial portions of the Scott Frost era. I have dreaded writing an article, any article, about the ghastly cumbubble that my beloved Big Red has become — so I will keep this short. You see, it is simply too preposterous a set of memories to live with on a day-to-day basis, and revisiting the last season (or last half decade) of Nebraska football can be hazardous to one’s health.

I haven’t the courage to surf the internet and thoroughly excavate the 2021 iteration of the Frost Follies, but here is a set of high-level lowlights and recollections. Just prior to the season, the Athletic Director is forcibly retired, and is in a car rambling towards Washington state within 72 hours — I am still not sure what happened there. In the opener, the mighty Huskers lose on the road to Illinois, to a coach in his first year of a rebuild (it was the beginning of year four of the Frost Era). A fuzzy 1980’s montage of special teams boners and blowups plays in the background of my consciousness. Inopportune turnovers plague the season. Profligate mental errors abound. Nebraska wins one (1!) conference game. Almost the entire offensive staff is fired with several games still remaining to be played. The coach’s contract is restructured to lower his buyout. The team ends the season on a six game losing streak. The final record is 3-9.

How do you think it is going, chief?

Coach Frost has a 15-29 record in his four years at Nebraska. His teams have never finished higher than fifth in the B1G West.

And then, this:

“If you believe you’re doing things the right way – which we do – I think drastic changes are a mistake. Tweaks are what you need. Not being stuck in your ways, but looking for ways to improve, ways to do things a little bit different.

“We can’t change the basis of what we do and how we do it – because I’ve seen it work before, it has worked, it will work, it does work. Particularly as close as we were in almost every game last year, we’re always looking for one little way to get that much better. Major, drastic changes probably aren’t what you need.”

—Scott Frost, April 2022

Jesus. Sufferin’. F**k.

That tells you all you need to know about how this season is going to go.

Alas, the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior.

GBR