Pitchin with Pritch: Frost around another year after pay cut

Lots of things going on this past week with the Husker’s football program. 

First of all, the concern that may have existed with the future of Scott Frost can come to an end, at least for another year. 

Last Monday, Frost let most of his offensive coaches go. 

Some of the fired coaches had been with Frost for a while. All of them, I believe, were at UCF with Frost where they had success. 

Those who were fired immediately were offensive coordinator/wide receivers coach Matt Lubick, offensive line coach/run game coordinator Greg Austin, running backs coach Ryan Held and quarterbacks coach Mario Verduzco.

The information was that Frost fired them, but I wonder if he had a choice there or not because some his salary items were redone. 

His original contract paid him $5 million per year and that amount was cut to $4 million. I hope that doesn’t cause problems with his day-to-day living expenses.

The other part of his original contract was that if he would be fired before the contact was finished, he would get somewhere in the neighborhood of $15 million and that was cut to $7.5 million. That’s still a pretty nice neighborhood! 

The Huskers had bye week last week before finishing the season. There were some rumors that some of the older players were talking about not playing in those games for various reasons.

I hope this soap opera ends soon and we can get back to just playing some hard, competitive football and actually scoring more points than the opponent.

Husker hoops

On Tuesday night a more disturbing thing happened, again in my opinion. The opening game of the basketball season for the Husker men started with a game with Western Illinois.

In one of the Husker’s exhibition games, they defeated a team ranked by some in the top 40 teams in the nation. 

Western Illinois was ranked at 240 by the same group. 

Western Illinois defeated the Huskers 75-74. This had to be a shocking and very disappointing defeat. 

This is supposed to be the most talented team that the Huskers have had in a few years. But much like their football counterparts, the Huskers keep doing the same things over and over and they are things that get you beat.

For example, the Huskers were out rebounded 57-37 and that caused a scoring problem as WI got 22 second–chance points to the Husker’s eight.

The Huskers only had six assists in the game, mainly because there was way too much dribbling and one-on-one offense. 

The Huskers were 5-20 from 3-point land and ended up shooting under 40% overall. Yet, the Huskers had a chance to win but gave up a couple of pretty deep three point shots from WI and let them get an offensive rebound and score. 

The Huskers had been great at the free throw line, but couldn’t hit them at the end when they really needed them—success killers for sure.

Time for introductions?

The Huskers got almost no help from the bench, either. 

At times, I thought it would have been nice for the coaches to call a timeout and introduce the starters to each other. At times, it appeared that whoever had the ball didn’t recognize the face of his teammates.

The Huskers, got outrebounded, out-hustled, didn’t play together, didn’t appear to play very hard at times and most certainly didn’t play smart. 

It’s just the first game of the season, but I am sure that Western Illinois is not the toughest team on the schedule by a long shot! No pun intended.

Friday night the Huskers looked a little better and picked up a win against Sam Houston But there were still a lot of times when I wondered if that was going to happen or not. 

The scary thing is that I don’t see any way the Huskers can play the way they have in the first two games and ever be very competitive in the Big 10. I could be wrong and I hope I am.

Poor Texas

 I would bet that the Eyes of Texas are all shedding big tears as Texas dropped their fifth game in a row, something that hasn’t happened since 1956.Plus, Plus, they gave up more than 50 points in the loss.

Even more shocking was that the loss came in overtime to Kansas, who was on an eight-game losing streak and 31-point underdog. 

KU’s win snapped a 56-game conference losing streak on the road and marked the first time Kansas had ever beaten Texas in Austin. 

I’m writing this on Sunday and have another game to watch our grandson play later on. 

College basketballis off and running with Husker men playing Creighton Tuesday.

High school basketball is getting close. Great time of the year for this old basketball guy!