Year 2 Regression Under Frost

Iowa misses the FG and we win in OT, or we don't make critical error on the final offensive drive and we are sitting at 6 wins, go to a bowl game and everyone is talking about what a great turn around the year was.

Besides Ohio State and Minnesota, Nebraska was at least competitively in every game. Yes, some of those were competitive losses to Indiana, Purdue and Colorado, all games Nebraska should have won, but they were competitive vs Wisconsin and Iowa. 

Just looking at Iowa's defensive line and defensive players, they still looked bigger and more athletic then our players. 

 
Iowa misses the FG and we win in OT, or we don't make critical error on the final offensive drive and we are sitting at 6 wins, go to a bowl game and everyone is talking about what a great turn around the year was.

Besides Ohio State and Minnesota, Nebraska was at least competitively in every game. Yes, some of those were competitive losses to Indiana, Purdue and Colorado, all games Nebraska should have won, but they were competitive vs Wisconsin and Iowa. 

Just looking at Iowa's defensive line and defensive players, they still looked bigger and more athletic then our players. 
Hopefully the players, coaches, and recruits see that we aren't that far off. Slightly better effort, focus, execution, and play calling is a 4 win swing.

Also, if you take out the 5* legacy Epinesa, I thought we looked comparable after the 1st quarter.

 
It seems to me that maybe Frost is calling plays for talent that he does not have.  This team does not have the ability for whatever reason to execute.  Plays are there to be made, but are not made.  Part of it is AM's regression - maybe a little bad luck too, but it isn't a good scenario at present.

 
Iowa misses the FG and we win in OT, or we don't make critical error on the final offensive drive and we are sitting at 6 wins, go to a bowl game and everyone is talking about what a great turn around the year was.

Besides Ohio State and Minnesota, Nebraska was at least competitively in every game. Yes, some of those were competitive losses to Indiana, Purdue and Colorado, all games Nebraska should have won, but they were competitive vs Wisconsin and Iowa. 

Just looking at Iowa's defensive line and defensive players, they still looked bigger and more athletic then our players. 


We were actually more competitive in our 8 losses last year than our 7 losses this year. We lost many close games last year too and could have easily been 6-6 in 2018 and had a worse record in 2019.  At best the program moved sideways in year 2, but there were many signs of regressing, especially on offense where we averaged 14 points less a game in 2019 vs common competition than we did in 2018.



Tommie is a frustrated fan like many of us and sees poor coaching acumen that has cost us some games this season.  

 
Not counting games played today, here are the total conference wins for the 2018 and 2019  seasons combined for the BIG West Teams.  We are tied for last with Illinois, and if they beat Northwestern today, we will have had the worst conference record on the West side.

Wisconsin-11

Iowa-11

Minnesota-10

Northwestern-8

Purdue-8

Illinois-6

Nebraska-6

 
We lost to any team that had a pulse this year.  Our wins, other than against the Illini, were against teams with losing records.  Power 5 teams with a pulse beat our butts this year.  I would say that Illinois would beat us today.  Thats for the negative.

Positive, well digging deep for this, but I think our Defense in spurts, in spots was a minor little bit better...........maybe?  Mills is a dude at rb.  Spielman is still our best option at WR.

Wandale is a difference maker, and without him in a few games, we will never know what some other games could have looked like.  

Coaching this season seemed not so great.  With saying that, I wonder if it was as much coaching or just the fact that Amart didn't look the part and that caused our offense to sputter.  Either way, its poor coaching.

Seeing that we are going after some Juco players, says to me that we are needing some instant players to contribute.  Either that means we don't have it on the roster yet, or its not near developed yet.  I don't mind some Juco players, if they are impact players.

 
We were actually more competitive in our 8 losses last year than our 7 losses this year. We lost many close games last year too and could have easily been 6-6 in 2018 and had a worse record in 2019.  At best the program moved sideways in year 2, but there were many signs of regressing, especially on offense where we averaged 14 points less a game in 2019 vs common competition than we did in 2018.
Isn't this encouraging though? In my opinion the offense will get right. Frost has been a part of too many high powered offenses to let this become his new normal. This is outlier production from this offense. We definitely regressed there and still managed 1 more win than last year against a more competitive division. The offense will get right and when it does I think Chin has this defense going in the right direction well enough it can win us a lot of games. If we had Oregon circa 2011 type production on offense, which I am confident we will get close to at some point soon, we win 8 games this year no question. Possibly 9 or 10. The offense really screwed this season from an optics standpoint. It doesn't look encouraging but if you can imagine the offense being a typical Frost offense sometime soon it all of the sudden looks much more encouraging.

 
Isn't this encouraging though? In my opinion the offense will get right. Frost has been a part of too many high powered offenses to let this become his new normal. This is outlier production from this offense. We definitely regressed there and still managed 1 more win than last year against a more competitive division. The offense will get right and when it does I think Chin has this defense going in the right direction well enough it can win us a lot of games. If we had Oregon circa 2011 type production on offense, which I am confident we will get close to at some point soon, we win 8 games this year no question. Possibly 9 or 10. The offense really screwed this season from an optics standpoint. It doesn't look encouraging but if you can imagine the offense being a typical Frost offense sometime soon it all of the sudden looks much more encouraging.


I don't see anything encouraging about having an offense that scored 14 points less a game with a returning starter QB and a team with a whole extra year of learning Frost's offensive system. Moreover, Chins defense gave up 35 points a game against common competition in 2018 and 33 in 2019.  I am not sure anything in the high 20s or low 30s is something we should accept.  I want a stout defense that does not require an offense to score 40 points a game consistently.  

 
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