HUSKER FOOTBALL: Hixson Receives Scholarship, Team Voting on Captains
LINCOLN–(NU Athletics August 23)–The Nebraska football team practiced for just over two hours Friday morning inside the Hawks Championship Center and outside on the Ed and Joyanne Gass practice fields.
Head Coach Scott Frost spoke with the media after practice and touched on the development of the team and where it is headed.
Frost started off by speaking about some of the scholarships he’s awarded to walk-ons.
“We gave one away today.” Frost said. “I think on our team the way the roster sits with our 85 (scholarships) we probably have three to give. We’re still trying to decide on a couple of them, but we put Trent Hixson on scholarship today. The team was fired up for him, so he’ll be on scholarship.”
Frost said the ability to award scholarships to walk-on players is a great way to recognize the contributions walk-ons make to the program.
“I’ve kind of said all along that the walk-on program is going to help us,” he said. “I thought it would take a little while to get those guys into the program but we develop them the same way we develop the scholarship guys. [We] give them reps. I kind of thought Trent might be the first guy, but he’s the first guy in I hope a long line of walk-ons while I’m here that comes in, goes to work and becomes a guy that’s gonna play or start for us, so he deserves it and I hope he isn’t the last one.”
Frost was also asked about naming team captains for the 2019 season.
“We’re going to vote on captains today,” Frost said. “As a matter of fact, the guys are going vote in the room. I don’t want to do it to early cause I want to see the guys to experience fall camp to see who the guys who represent them the best and who the best leaders are. The guys are going to vote on it today. Probably the one difference this year from years past is we don’t have a lot of seniors on offense so it might possibly not be four seniors, but it’s going be the best two leaders on offense and (defense).”
Frost also spoke about the growth of the defense in the second year under defensive coordinator Erik Chinander.
“(Chinander) has plenty of experience coming in, it’s just first years are hard,” Frost said. “First years, trying to get guys to understand what we expect out of them, trying to get guys to understand the scheme. You know, I could relate on offense. We can go out on the field right now with the offense and call something the guys have never seen or heard of before and as long as it fits within the rules of what they know to do they just run it and don’t blink. And the defense is starting to get that way too as (Chinander) was talking about what our next opponent does out of a certain formation and when the guys heard what they did they said ‘so you want us to make this adjustment’ and he goes ‘OK, you got it. Next’ and moves on to the next thing.
“All that stuff hopefully will make us a better team because the guys just understand better. We coached our butts off last year trying to get them here but it’s just hard to get all the way home in one year, and I think we’re way farther down the road right now.”
Saturday, the Huskers will conduct a light evening workout inside Memorial Stadium as part of their Boneyard Bash night with UNL students. Kickoff for the season opener is scheduled for August 31, at 11 a.m. at Memorial Stadium with television coverage provided ESPN.
