Steven M. Sipple: Frost plows through rugged winter amid criticism from even ex-teammates | Column

“Sometimes it gets a little personal here, especially since this is my home state,” he said. “But listen, we want every former player to be involved in this. We’ve called a bunch of them in the last couple weeks to make sure they know we want them around. 

“Winning takes care of almost all of that, so that’s what we’ve got our mind focused on.” 

I’m glad he said winning takes care of “almost all of that.” This is Nebraska. We know winning doesn’t cure all. Ask Tom Osborne if winning consistently is all that’s needed to keep the wolves from your door. Shortly after the 1990 season, he told his assistants that they’d better look for jobs elsewhere after the Huskers finished 9-3. Fan heat had gotten intense. Fans demanded championships. They felt it was time. 

The conversation obviously has evolved since the Osborne days. At any rate, Frost has said he deserves most of the criticism that’s come his way. Bottom line, he’s reached a critical point in his tenure. Nebraska fans want to see discernible progress. They want clean, tough football. They haven’t seen nearly enough of it. They haven’t seen nearly enough “W’s.” That’s a fair evaluation. Thing is, Frost knows it’s fair. The fans never envisioned 12-20. Let’s face it, the head coach never envisioned 12-20. 

It still seems startling. 

We never envisioned the defense being the key to the program’s hopes at this point in Frost’s tenure. In an interesting twist, he’s been saying recently he doesn’t necessarily agree with that narrative. He doubled down last week when he said the skill positions on offense possess “the best depth we’ve had by far and the best overall talent we’ve had by far.”