Scott Frost live PC

Submitted by mgohusker on August 10th, 2020 at 3:07 PM

https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1OyKAgOjoPDJb

Frost says NU will lose 80-120 million if no football is played. Lincoln will lose $300 million. 

Frost is asked whether or not Nebraska would pursue games outside Big Ten structure. 

"We want to play no matter who it is or where it is...I think we're prepared to look for other options."

Frost seems bullish on playing this fall. 

"The longer you keep a business shut down, the harder it is to open." 

Nebraska laying the groundwork for pursuing its own path, if necessary.

Frost: Nebraska could be ready in a week to play a football game.

Frost said Nebraska had "one of the most passionate and energetic practices I've been a part of" Monday.

Frost understands the economics well. Says NU could lose 80-120 million, then have to carry 105-120 scholarships for years due to eligibility issues. Said jobs would be lost, jobs would be cut.

https://twitter.com/MrCFB/status/1292895553530068998

UMProud

August 10th, 2020 at 3:11 PM ^

Interesting comments...however Mr. Frost wouldn't be the subject of any legal liabilities it would be the University administrators I'm pretty sure.  I don't think anyone wants to be the buck the consensus thinking right now.

bluebyyou

August 10th, 2020 at 3:29 PM ^

What Frost misses is that IF things improve and it is likely they will by spring, we will get football with fans in the stands.  We may have some likely to be drafted players sitting out but people will be so happy to have things a bit more normal there should be lots of support and more revenue than we can get with empty or largely empty stands.  

uofmchris1

August 10th, 2020 at 3:16 PM ^

Fixed the typo.

Frost: Nebraska could be ready in a week to play a football game and get our asses handed to us.

 

 

WolverineHistorian

August 10th, 2020 at 3:17 PM ^

You had a great practice Monday?  So what?  Our great practices under RichRod and Hoke never meant much in the grand scheme of things.  You were heading for an Independence Bowl at best this year.  

A Lot of Milk

August 10th, 2020 at 3:18 PM ^

Frost: Nebraska could be ready in a week to play a football game.

 

Doesn't this sentence read the exact same way as "it doesn't matter how much practice we get" 

robpollard

August 10th, 2020 at 3:19 PM ^

- Reason # 473 I'm glad we have Harbaugh as our coach instead of Frost.

While the money and jobs are obviously important, the really smart thing about Harbaugh's letter is it was focused on health: that there are world-class public health systems in place for his football team and his team is already doing, and will continue to do, a great job of mitigating the health risks. So let them play.

I don't think a focus on "look at the money you're going to lose!" is an effective argument for university presidents, as that argument was used to open up the country earlier (e.g., "You need to fully open restaurants and bars -- we need sales taxes, dude!") with disastrous results.

The biggest key people should have learned is you need to take care of managing and eliminating the virus; once you do that, then you get the economic benefits. That should be every coach's message if they want to get university presidents to re-consider (who, trust me, are well-aware of the budget implications).

UMProud

August 10th, 2020 at 3:24 PM ^

Great points and very reasonable.  I strongly suspect it boils down to something really simple...can we (the school) guarantee the player's safety (#1) and can I (University administrator), or the school, be sued (#2) if an athlete, God forbid, gets sick and their long term health is impacted or they die from Covid as a result of me allowing football to proceed?  This is probably the #1 consideration for them.

Mr Miggle

August 10th, 2020 at 3:40 PM ^

Focusing purely on the money, Power 5 football schools are better off playing and risking lawsuits. The money lost by not playing is substantial. They had better follow all recommended safety precautions though, and some would be disruptive. G-5 and lower schools are in a different position.

The biggest reasons I see for canceling are

1.concern for the safety of their students.  

2.avoiding a fiasco with the season getting canceled early - something that could be avoided by waiting until 2021 to start play

3. avoiding bad PR

4. putting athletics, particularly football, in it's proper place as they see it

The order will vary by institution.

robpollard

August 10th, 2020 at 3:52 PM ^

What presidents glide over is that in normal circumstances, they have decided to allow CFB to be played even though there are on average 2 deaths per year in the sport, numerous others paralyzed, and hundreds of others who incur a traumatic brain injury. That is all bad, but the risk is very well-known and society has decided to accept it.

Due to this being a novel virus, they don't have a good handle on the risk -- they know it is very low for players, but will it cause 0 deaths? 5? Will it cause a couple dozen kids to have long-term health problems? Hundreds? And most importantly -- unlike a concussion, which is limited to the field of play, someone who gets "injured" via the virus can pass along that injury to potentially dozens of others, either on or off-campus.

Again, that's why Harbaugh's letter is so good: he is providing evidence that the healthiest thing is to play football, that we are taking this seriously, and we will do the best job to mitigate this risk.

If coaches like Frost followed up by focusing on, "We also are taking this super serious -- here's evidence of that, and when Nebraska plays another team, we'll care as much about their health as we do are own" and bozos like Schiano had said a couple weeks ago, "We had numerous players violate our protocols by going to a party. We have suspended those players from the team and revised our protocols so it doesn't happen again" the B1G presidents may not be on the cusp of cancelling the season.

shoes

August 10th, 2020 at 4:49 PM ^

You can't ever guarantee a player's safety, you couldn't before and you won't be able to in the future. Players die due to previously undetected heart conditions, they become paralyzed due to spinal chord injuries and many will suffer from long term effects due to concussive injuries. The standard has been do you take reasonable precautions to safeguard against or limit such injuries? Except with Covid- on this board, now the standard seems to be absolute.

UMFanInFlorida

August 10th, 2020 at 5:02 PM ^

Welcome to 2020. Everything is binary, all or nothing, no in-between.

Look at the majority of the banter in these threads. There’s so little actual discourse and so much “it’s this way no matter what.”

On top of that I see so much of: “This data agrees with what I think so it must be true, but if I see new data that disagrees, it doesn’t matter bc there are anecdotes that support my point. But when the data supports my point, your anecdotes don’t matter.” on both sides are of this discussion.

And it’s not just mgoblog, it’s everywhere. We’ve lost the ability to think critically, reason about things, consider other people’s positions and work together to find solutions.

WirlingDirvish

August 10th, 2020 at 3:22 PM ^

He seems to be going hard after the "college athletics is a business" approach. LOOK AT ALL THE MONEY WE WILL LOSE!!! WAAAAAA!!!! Makes it seem a bit disingenuous don't ya think? Harbaughs approach of everyone wants to play and this is what we are doing to make it safe seems like the better approach here...

Laser Wolf

August 10th, 2020 at 3:26 PM ^

"Frost understands the economics well. Says NU could lose 80-120 million, then have to carry 105-120 scholarships for years due to eligibility issues. Said jobs would be lost, jobs would be cut."

The players say thanks for putting a number on their value.

robpollard

August 10th, 2020 at 4:03 PM ^

He did at the beginning, talking about how he's "leaned on" the medical staff, his players "feel safe" and his program "respects the virus" -- and I honestly am sure that is true. But very quickly he then talks about "What we don't talk about is -- What the world looks like, and what the lives of our kids looks like, if we don't play football?" and I thought he was going to talk about how it is actually riskier--from a health perspective--if the players don't have access to the structure, testing, and protection that's available to them in a big-time D-1 program.

Nope. He says, "Let's skip past financial..." and then proceeded *not* to skip past that, talking about how much money will be lost, jobs will be cut, etc.

That is all true and very meaningful...but not convincing to a university president. They are looking at programs like Rutgers and MSU, and how MLB has been a lurching shitshow, and think "We will have virus outbreaks if we play football, which will then not only require us to cancel the season (and thus lose the money anyway!), but put non-football students & staff at risk, which will imperil anything we're trying to do with the school-part of school."

A key job of the university president is to think about money -- you don't have to tell them! They know! They need to know it is safer to play football than it is not. That needed to be his focus.

b618

August 10th, 2020 at 4:22 PM ^

Michigan might have the choice between losing a little or a lot, though.

Could be that Michigan football would still be profitable, though, depending on how it accounted for.  Historically, Michigan tended to pull in about $80M profit on $140M in revenue.  FY 2020 revenue was up to $190M.

HelloHeisman91

August 10th, 2020 at 3:32 PM ^

I see a lot of people very concerned about all the money involved in this after decades of hearing that athletes shouldn’t be concerned with all of the money involved in this. 

lhglrkwg

August 10th, 2020 at 3:53 PM ^

Every time a coach or administrator mentions the lost revenue as a driver to play, thats just more ammunition for players if they ever organize and ask for a slice of the pie. If you wanna play for the love of the game thats one thing, but implying the players need to play to make revenue for the university is going to be something universities end up regretting they admitted