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Points after: Frost gives his take on Nebraska vs. Iowa

Here is a quick recap of what Nebraska head coach Scott Frost had to say following the Huskers’ loss to Iowa on Friday...

Nebraska head coach Scott Frost gave his thoughts on the Huskers' Black Friday loss to Iowa.
Nebraska head coach Scott Frost gave his thoughts on the Huskers' Black Friday loss to Iowa. (Associated Press)

***On his message to the team after the game was, Frost said, “I’ve had too many of those conversations with these guys.”

Frost said he told the seniors that he loved them, and for the young guys, he reiterated how close they were all year from this being a completely different season.

***Frost said they had “a little package for Noah (Vedral) and little package for Luke (McCaffrey)” going into the game. He said they expected Iowa’s defense to creep up on McCaffrey to stop the run, and that led to the 38-yard touchdown pass to JD Spielman.

He said they tried a similar plan with Vedral but the Hawkeyes were able to sniff it out.

***Frost said he didn’t seriously consider making a quarterback change during the game, especially not late in the fourth quarter.

“We have three really good quarterbacks, but didn’t think tied at 24 in the fourth quarter was the right time to do it,” Frost said.

***On Adrian Martinez running out of bounds and stopping the clock on third down of NU’s final drive, Frost said he understood what Martinez was thinking but admitted it was a bad play.

“It’s hard to go from score-and-win mode to trying to burn the clock, but you just can’t do it,” Frost said.

Frost added that he could’ve called a timeout after the second-down play to make sure everyone was on the same page.

***Frost said the last two drives were obviously the difference in the game, and he thought his team played well enough to win up until that point.

“A lot of things went right and then a lot of things went against us there in the end,” he said.

***Frost said outside of the three big plays for touchdowns in the first half, Nebraska’s defense “held their own” against Iowa’s offense.

***On the kickoff return for a touchdown, Frost said he wasn’t sure why Barret Pickering kicked the ball deep. He said the plan was to stick with pooch punts to prevent Iowa from getting good return looks.

“To be honest with you, I have to find that out,” Frost said. “I’ll have to get back to you on what happened there.”

***Frost said overall special teams was an area that had to improve as much as anything next season. He said along with the kick return touchdown, NU didn’t punt well at all in the fourth quarter, and then Iowa’s kicking game proved to be the difference.

“Ours has to get better,” Frost said. “You see when teams have good special teams, it can change games.”

***On all of the trick plays Nebraska ran on Friday, Frost said: “We weren’t going to leave anything in the tank. We had some good stuff for them, and they stayed disciplined.”

Frost said if nothing else, those plays kept Iowa’s defense back and helped open some things up in the running game.

***Frost was asked about Martinez’s confidence right now, and he said, “We’re going to have time to evaluate a lot of things.” Frost said Martinez had done plenty well this year, but he was like the entire team in that NU’s confidence “can be a little bit fragile.”

Frost said that lack of confidence was something he and his staff inherited with this team and the only way to change that was for some good things to finally happen for the team again.

“Momentum is a powerful thing,” Frost said.

***Frost said it might not seem like it, but he feels like his team “covered a lot of ground” over the past two seasons and that “a lot of things that needed to be fixed, and a lot of that has been addressed.”

***Frost said Wan’Dale Robinson tried to play through his injured hamstring but it eventually “clinched up on him again” in the second quarter. Frost said he didn’t see Robinson “cut it loose” in warmups like he usually does, so Frost knew Robinson still wasn’t 100 percent.

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