Urban Meyer weighs in on state of Nebraska amid Scott Frost dismissal

A new era of Nebraska football will be upon us sooner rather than later. The Cornhuskers made the surprising decision to pull the plug on Scott Frost before the Oct. 1 date, with athletic director Trev Alberts firing the head coach on Sunday. In what seemed to be a perfect hire at the time, the wait to return to prominence will have to wait in Lincoln.

Urban Meyer weighed in on the state of Nebraska after Frost got fired, talking about how surprising it has been to see the program struggle for so long. Meyer went back to the glory days in Lincoln, calling them the “Alabama of college football” while Tom Osborne was in charge.

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“Especially for the older people that grew up in the Tom Osborne era where, they were the Alabama of college football,” Meyer said. “They had great players, high draft picks. The offense, you couldn’t stop. The blackshirts on defense.”

Under Osborne, Nebraska won 255 games and was consistently winning their conference championships. Possibly even more surprisingly, there were only 50 losses in the Osborne era and three ties. It truly was a dominant two decades in Lincoln.

Urban Meyer discusses Nebraska in older conferences

He then discussed how different Nebraska looks from a conference perspective alone. Playing against regional rivals on the day is something that potentially boosted the Cornhuskers according to Meyer. At one point, the college football world revolved around where they were playing.

“You know, that corridor of the Southwest Conference, the Big 8, the Big 12,” Meyer began. “The corridor of Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M, Arkansas, Nebraska — in my early adult life, that was the best football in the country. National champions, Heisman Trophy winners. And to believe you see some of this happening right now. First of all, the breakup — Oklahoma and Texas leaving. Arkansas not in a conference anymore with a school like Nebraska that’s had recent struggles.”

Five national championships have Nebraska’s name on them, with two coming in the 1970s and three in the 1990s. Three Heisman Trophy winners have come from the Cornhuskers program as well but funny enough, never from a title-winning season.

However, since then, there has not been much hardware to boast about. 2012 provided a Big Ten Legends title and therefore a conference championship game appearance. Like Meyer, plenty of us are struggling to figure out what’s been wrong with Nebraska over the years.