Nebraska football celebrates its ‘best’ practice of 2018
Nebraska’s best practice of the season is cause for acknowledgement for head coach Scott Frost, whose team is winless in 2018.
Nebraska head coach Scott Frost addresses the media at Big Ten Football Media Days in Chicago on Monday, July 23, 2018.
October 17, 2018
The inaugural season of the Scott Frost era is halfway over, and, with the Huskers sitting at 0-6, postseason hopes are slipping away faster than Bo Pelini being run out of town.
However, morale isn’t low in Huskerland, as Frost’s crew is still persevering. The coach said during his weekly press conference that on Monday, his team had an outstanding practice.
“It was our best overall practice of the year,” Frost said. “I told the guys after practice, it says a lot about who they are to respond that way.”
Frost’s bunch was just a fourth-down stop away from winning game No. 1 of 2018, but Northwestern converted on not one but two fourth downs during its 99-yard drive (with no timeouts) to tie the game and send the game into overtime.
While that drive will sit in the minds of Husker faithful for some time (just as those national titles do), Nebraska hasn’t been all that bad in 2018. The Northwestern loss marked the third time this season that the Huskers finished on the wrong end of a one-score game.
Frost’s main point during Nebraska’s worst start in program history is to make sure his players don’t accept the current state of the team as normal.
“The one concern I have is I don’t want the guys to used to losing and be OK with that,” Frost said.
Losing to Iowa by 26 calls for a team meeting
Indiana kept things competitive with Iowa for about half a quarter on Oct. 13, driving down field and scoring a field goal on its opening drive. From there, though, the Hoosiers were outscored 42-13 — a complete dismantling, especially compared with how well they hung with the No. 2 Ohio State the previous week.
“We got beat by a team on that day that was a better football team in all three phases,” Indiana head coach Tom Allen said during his weekly press conference. “I give them credit where credit is due but also look internally and challenge ourselves.”
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Allen said that after the game, some of his players came to him and the coaching staff and wanted to meet. The team got together and addressed how Indiana responded and how to flush the Homecoming loss.
“A bunch of seniors got up, and spoke, and did a great job of just being leaders, saying what needed to be said in the right way, from the heart,” he said. “Just really challenging our guys to respond the right way.”
Allen said that during the week leading up to his team’s clash with Iowa, the Hoosiers focused on one word: grit.
The word “grit” is still in focus; not much “grit” could be taken away from the Hoosiers’ loss.
“It takes a tremendous amount to be able to persevere through life challenges, season challenges. How you respond to those is who you become, how you are known,” he said. “For me, it’s an opportunity for us to really challenge our older guys, say, ‘Hey, the clock is ticking, only so many opportunities yet.’ ”
‘Goodbye, Columbus’ — Nick Bosa
Star defensive lineman Nick Bosa has missed the past four games because of an injured core muscle.
On Monday, Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer was asked if he was optimistic on the star’s ability to return from injury.
“Yes,” he responded. From there, no more questions were asked about the Big Ten’s best defensive player. Now, that might change.
On Tuesday, Bosa made the decision not to return to Ohio State (despite Meyer’s confidence in what he thought) and instead focus solely on rehabbing and preparing for the NFL Draft in April.
“I don’t think there was any reason to come back and risk an injury that would have prevented him from being at the top of the draft board,” ESPN’s Mel Kiper said on Tuesday.
Bosa is listed as Kiper’s No. 1 prospect on his big board.
