Nebraska Football: Toughness a great goal for the program

The head coach wants his Nebraska Football program to be tougher.

I have talked at length about team identity for Nebraska Football and the fact that Scott Frost is trying to change the culture of the program. He wants to make his mark on this program and that is abundantly clear. Nevertheless, along with making his mark, he wants his players to feel comfortable with what they are buying into. I give him credit for that, as many coaches take a “My way or the highway approach.” He is letting the players lead.

However, he has made his expectations clear on what he expects from this team. He wants them to be tough. He wants them to be physical, and not take any guff from anybody. Although he did not outrightly say this, he made it clear earlier in the week. During a radio appearance on Tuesday, ($) he made it clear that he wants his team to be tough, just like the teams he was around in the mid-90s.

"“To me, the one thing we need to keep working on is making sure that we’re a tough football team,” the second-year Husker head coach said Tuesday during a radio appearance on 590 AM in Omaha. “The Nebraska teams that I was around, that I watched, that I was a part of (from 1995-97) — there was just a mentality there that nobody was going to get the best of us. In fact, it was a little more nasty than that, if I was telling the truth.“We have some guys who are like that. But others are learning how to be that competitive, that tough and that physical all the time. We’ve come a long way from that standpoint. But playing in this league (the Big Ten), if we can hold up or win physically against some of these teams in the Big Ten West, then I feel really good about our chances.”"

I admire that he wants his team to be tough. In an era where players are taking control of programs and coaches are given less leeway to instruct players, wanting them to be tough is a great thing. We saw a little bit of mental toughness at the tail end of the last season. Although they went 4-8 last season, the record did not tell the entire story for Nebraska Football. They won four of six games to conclude the season.

You could definitely tell that pieces were being put in place to build off for 2019. The seeds were being planted. 2018 was simply a year of testing for Scott Frost and his coaching staff. Now, they come into 2019 with a better idea of what they’re working with. it’s time to put those plans into action. With the talent that can be found on the roster, I don’t see any reason why they can’t fulfill their goal of being a tough team.

Frost hit the nail on the head when talking about tough teams in the Big 10 West. Any team can beat you on any given night. The Big Ten conference in general is a conference that features some of the toughest teams in the nation.  Nebraska Football certainly has something to strive for in that regard. They want to be among the best. I hate to sound cliché but if you want to be the best you have to beat the best. particularly for Nebraska, they will face several challenges next year that will certainly put their talent and resolve to the test.

It sounds like Frost is going to do his best to make sure they get to where they need to be in terms of competing with the elite programs. That is something I can certainly get behind.