Frost reflects on the decision to not play in bowl and more off-season topics

Nothing about 2020 was normal for the Nebraska football team.

NU head coach Scott Frost addressed several off-season topics in his first media appearance since the Huskers season finale at Rutgers on Dec. 18.

Appearing on the Husker Sports Network on Wednesday night, Frost said the bowl game decision was not an easy one, but in the end there wasn’t enough consensus support to move forward.

“We would’ve loved to have played in a bowl game, but our kids were tired and some of them hadn’t been home for nine months,” Frost said. “We gave them four-plus weeks off. I went deer hunting with some buddies right away. I think all of us were able to spend some good family time. My wife and I actually went on vacation and got somewhere warm and sunny for four or five days. I think everybody needed that a little bit, and I think all the coaches did the same thing.”

Frost added because of the unique circumstances of the 2020 season, he wanted to make sure his team had a voice in this process.

“I think a lot of the team, most of the team wanted to go out and play. This was kind of the one time because of how weird the year was that I wanted the team to help decide,” Frost said. “We also didn’t want to go into a bowl game unless everybody was committed and gun-ho and excited about going. It was just such a long, hard year that we couldn’t get a unanimous decision from that standpoint. We went through a lot of things last year that I think the team needed to go through for growth. I’m glad we got that opportunity to do that this year, and I think it will lead to better things next year and beyond.”

With the page turned now to 2021, nearly all of Nebraska’s players are in Lincoln.

NU’s eight-week winter conditioning program will begin on Monday, with the first spring practice set to begin on Mar. 30.

Frost also confirmed on Wednesday that the Red-White spring game is currently set for May 1.

“We actually brought our players back this past weekend,” Frost said. “Per campus rules, they have to go through a quarantine period and we have to get them tested. We wanted to make sure we handled everything the right way and safety was our primary concern. We’ve kind of received the majority of the team back on campus now. They will get started officially with winter conditioning on Monday.

“For spring ball, we are going to move it back a little bit. We are not sure if we are going to have spring recruiting or not, but I want to get full winter conditioning in before we start spring ball. In order to do that, we needed to delay the start of spring practice. It will be the five weeks leading up into April and we are planning on having our spring game on May 1.”