Definitely can regain confidence in him but he has to look at himself as much as he does his players and fellow coaches. I believe he’s coaching scared to lose (since coming to Lincoln he’s somehow developed a fear of failure). Maybe he doesn’t want to let TO down or something.
On play calling, I’ve yet to speak to a Husker fan who understands why he keeps running those swing passes and screen passes, although the screen passes worked much better when it wasn’t Martinez running the offense. It’s almost as if he’s trying to emulate TO hammering the run game at our opponents knowing it would eventually wear them down and those plays would start being incredibly successful. Well that doesn’t work with swing passes!
Let me give you me take on why Frost keeps calling those sideline or swing passes. Keep in mind I have no real inside knowledge of Frost's scheme or his specific X's and O's, this is merely my opinion on why I think Frost does what he does:
Those swing passes/throws to the sideline serve the same function as Iso runs between the 1 and 2 holes, the difference being the players being affected on defense.
When Tom Osborne would run Iso, the goal was always always to get the LBs to come up to stuff the run and then pick his spots to play-action pass over their heads. These swing passes serve the same function, but the effect is on the free and strong safety. The goal is to run these swing passes and get the secondary to come up on these in anticipation of making a great defensive play, but instead the pass goes over the top to a wide open WR because the secondary has a bust in their coverage. Also, these swing passes are (usually) safe throws that can act as an extension of a running game. The key concept is to get the defense running laterally to try and alter their alignment making opening holes for running backs wider and easier to find/run through. That's the "why" of running these swing passes.
This concept was wildly successful at Oregon and UCF but for different reasons. It was so effective at Oregon because the Ducks were the team that for the most part, brought full time, uptempo offense to P5 college football and just about every team really wasn't ready for it. At UCF, defenders aren't maybe as good (theoretically) as the are on a team in a P5 conference. There is a wider discrepancy in talent so exploiting that is easier.
At Nebraska, Frost has two things going against him: 1) Everybody knows Oregon's concepts and have caught up to them, and 2) There is a much higher level of physicality in the BIG than there ever was at UCF or even in the Pac 12. When opponents know your schemes and concepts, but you still execute, you're going to have a great team. When opponents hone in on what you're doing, and you're having trouble executing, you get Nebraska in 2019.
Getting back to the swing passes, in this poster's estimation the problem is not that we're running swing passes, but the we're running too many of them and not doing enough intermediate throwing (7-12 yards) downfield.
The bulk of the offense I've seen from Nebraska this season is:
1. Inside Zone
2. Outside Zone
3. Swing Passes
4. QB Runs
I'd need to look at the actual numbers to confirm, but based off of what I have seen, we don't throw the ball downfield nearly enough. Is that because Adrian Martinez can't see the field well enough to make those plays? Is he hurt as Damon Benning said? Is/are there distractions? Those are answers I don't have. But what I do know is that Frost may have to take a long hard look at some of his schemes and do some real analysis as to whether they are worth keeping.
