Scott Frost Quotes - 9/3

Nebraska Football
Weekly Press Conference
Memorial Stadium (Lincoln, Neb.)
Monday, Sept. 3, 2018
Pre-Colorado

Head Coach Scott Frost 

On the tunnel walk
“The Tunnel Walk was incredible for me just experiencing that again, it’s been a long time. It was so loud we couldn’t hear any of the music or anything, but you could just feel the energy, so that was the best part of the night.”

On the difficulty of having to repeat the energy that built up last week going into this week's game against Colorado.
“We are just disappointed. It’s been a lot of hard work and we got all dressed up for nothing. The guys were ready to play, I think more than anything I was proud of how they reacted to it, they handled the delay like pros, they wanted to play. A couple guys were yelling out let's just play in the Hawks (Championship Center), which would’ve been epic, but probably not safe. And then we started getting into the weeds of whether or not playing Sunday would be possible when we certainly wanted to make it happen our players wanted to play, we didn’t have anywhere to put them on Saturday night so I talked to them about if we are going to do this you need to get home and get to bed in your own beds which isn’t what you do the night before a game. I was proud of how they reacted to that and the fact that they wanted to play so bad. The challenge is you don’t get the benefit of your first game going into the second one. Most coaches will say you improve the most between game one and game two, we don’t get the benefit of that so we are going to have to make up for it in practice. We had one of the best Mondays I’ve ever seen a team have, today. We’re on the right track. This coaching staff has been through this, we’re snake bit I think this is our third year in a row we’ve had a game cancelled. We’re used to dealing with this and we’ll do our best to get the guys ready.”

On Akron not wanting to playing the game Sunday
“Yeah I wish we could’ve played, at the end of the day they declined to play on Sunday. If I was in Coach (Terry) Bowden’s shoes I’m not sure if I would’ve. One of the downsides, if there is one of having so many fans here interested, is there’s no hotels in town that could service either team. We were scrambling trying to find a place for them to stay and kind of found a place, but it certainly wouldn’t have been ideal for his team to not know where they’re eating, not know where they’re staying, not know where everybody is. I wish they would have agreed to play on Sunday so we could’ve got the game in, but if I was in his shoes I’m not sure I would have made any different decision.”

On the timeline of Saturday’s events
“I didn’t start getting involved in it until 8:30 or 8:45 somewhere in there, it was well after 8 o’clock. I was dealing with the team, trying to make sure the team was doing things the right way. I was still in our game mode trying to make sure we had all the play calls we needed to run. Once it started to look more and more suspect that we weren’t going to get the game in we got everybody together and started working on worst case scenarios. It’s something that’s happened to our staff a few times, it hasn’t happened here since 1943 I think they said because of travel restrictions from World War II. You can be prepared for things or question how you dealt with it, but nobody can control the weather.”

On the rest of the staff’s reaction to the weather
“Just here we go again. Our whole team’s reaction was just we wish we could’ve played one way shape or form or whatever time, our guys wanted to play.”

On the possibility of scheduling a game on Nebraska’s bye-week
“At this point any scenario isn’t ideal. Playing 12 straight weeks certainly isn’t ideal for any team. Depth is a little bit of an issue for us at certain positions and it’s certainly not ideal for us, but given the choice I know that they are kind of researching and looking into all options given the choice. These guys have worked so hard they deserve to play a full slate of games so if they give us an option to fill that game in somewhere we’re going to take it.”

On the change of Sunday’s duties with no game to recap
“Sunday was about the same other than we didn’t have a tape to watch from the day before, but we had several recruits in town and we spent time having meetings with them and then we started game planning for our next game just as we would any other week. Today’s a little different since it’s a holiday it was good for us we had a little bit extra time with them to make sure they knew the game plan really well today and understood it and we had an absolutely great practice today.”

On Ndamukong Suh’s appearance
“I didn’t know he [Suh] was coming. I didn’t know he was there until somebody told me afterwards, but he’s obviously a great player and a great Husker and we want all of those guys back so it’s good to see a lot of the people that showed up for the game.”

On interactions with Suh prior to Saturday
“After I got the job I talked to [Ndamukong] Suh a few times and just like everybody I’ve talked to he just voiced his support and happiness that we were all back and like I said it’s good to have those guys on the same page.”

On Frost’s advice to freshman quarterback Adrian Martinez before the game
“To summarize, I told him to take care of the football, play like you’re the best player on the field and play fast. He was ready to do those things. You can tell when a kid is ready and I think he was ready. I think evidence of that is today he had his best practice I’ve ever seen him have. So, he was one of the first to speak up and say ‘we want to play’ (referencing the weather delay on Saturday vs. Akron), ‘however it works we want to play’, and I think we’ve got a team full of guys like that.”

On Adrian Martinez’s performance in practice
“He looked like a real guy today. Just the way he was ripping the ball, making decisions, getting it out, running. It was the best I’ve seen him look. So, I wish I could’ve seen it on Saturday night, but we’ll have to wait a few more days and I know he’s anxious to get his first snaps.”

On the similarity of Colorado and Nebraska’s offenses
“Definitely there are some similarities on both sides of the ball. They do a lot of things defensively that our guys do, a lot of things offensively that our guys do. So, there’s going to be some familiarity there. We practice against what they do, they practice against what we do on offense a lot, that’s going to help as we’re trying to everything installed and have guys understand blocking schemes and the X’s and O’s of everything.”

On if the rivalry with Colorado is passed on to the players
“No, I don’t think so. There’s enough going on with what happened last weekend, with this being our first game now, we don’t need to probably talk much about a Colorado rivalry, but I got great memories of it. There were two games, it was a type of game that even if one team was better than the other, it was always going to be close and physical, a hard-fought game. So, I don’t expect anything different Saturday.”

On the scheduling situation after the cancelled game
“I imagine they are already looking into options and I wouldn’t expect to do anything without sitting in a room with everybody involved, including me, and making a decision on what’s best for our team.”

On Colorado’s first game against Colorado State
“Colorado looked good on all three phases last week. They really won that game decisively against an in-state rival. I think they’re coached very well, you don’t see them out of position ever, they’ve got a middle linebacker that made a bunch of plays, some really good guys on the secondary, some good guys up front. I think schematically they do some really good things on offense, had two receivers that played really well and a quarterback that had great numbers. So, they get the benefit of having that game under their belt and we don’t, but I know our guys are preparing hard and will be ready. We’re going to do the best we can.”

On the running back situation
“It looks the same as it did going into the last game. We have a bunch of guys that are going to play.”

On Colorado not having any Nebraska tape to look at before Saturday’s game
“I suppose we get a little bit of an advantage that they don’t have a game to look at. You know, they have all our stuff from other places to look at and that’s a lot of stuff. So, I’m sure they’re not gonna know where we’re leaning toward running or know as much about our personnel. I don’t think that’s as much of an advantage as having a game under your belt, but those are the cards we’re dealt and we’re going to attack practice all week and come out and attack the game.”

On the coincidence of having a few cancelled games at UCF and now one at Nebraska
“I’ve lived here a long time and usually when there are thunderstorms the front goes through and maybe another pocket pops up, but you’re still going to have the fireworks on 4th of July after the storm is over. This one just seemed to tracking right across Lancaster County and wouldn’t give up. So, you know, for the first hour and a half let’s get this over with, the later this goes, the longer the night it’s going to be. Wanted to get this game in and it wasn’t for well over an hour that I started thinking ‘Oh no, we might not be able to play this one.’ Just disappointing. All that buildup and all this work and we were so anxious to get out there and play.

On what staff and players were doing in the locker room during the weather delay
“We addressed the team several times. The first time was ‘stay ready, relax.’ The second time was ‘take your pads and shoes off, this could be a while, make sure you’re comfortable.’ The third time was ‘I don’t know where this is going.’ The fourth time was ‘there’s a chance we might not play tonight.’ Fifth time was ‘we might be able to play tomorrow, what do you guys think, are you going to go home and get in bed?’ And the last time was ‘I think we have a game scheduled for tomorrow, so get home and get in bed,’ and then it was a text message (saying) ‘there’s no game.’ So, that whole time we were trying to manage that and trying to keep our mind on what we had to do.”