Daily briefing: On Nebraska’s new OC, Nick Saban’s former assistants and Charlie Kolar
Ivan Maisel’s “Daily Briefing” for On3:
A Huskers breakthrough coming?
Here’s why I think Scott Frost will break through at Nebraska next season. He is smart enough to steal offensive coordinator Mark Whipple away from Pitt, where Whipple developed quarterback Kenny Pickett into a Heisman finalist. Whipple coached Ben Roethlisberger early in his career with the Steelers. He is as good a quarterback whisperer as there is in the college game, and by bringing him into Lincoln and giving him day-to-day control of the offense, Frost is betting that the top quarterbacks in the transfer portal will take a long look at the Huskers. Now we have to wait and see who those top quarterbacks will be.
A coaching assembly line
You recently may have seen the list of assistants from Nick Saban’s staff at Alabama in 2015 who have gone on to become prominent coaches: Kirby Smart at Georgia, Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss, Mel Tucker at Michigan State, Mario Cristobal now at Miami, Billy Napier now at Florida. Here’s a corollary to that list. With the announcement earlier this week that Michigan offensive coordinator Josh Gattis has won the Broyles Award as the best assistant in the nation, Gattis becomes the third Saban assistant (he worked at Alabama in 2018) in the past four seasons to win the Broyles. The others: Mike Locksley, now the coach at Maryland, and Steve Sarkisian, now the coach at Texas.
Charlie Kolar wins ‘Academic Heisman’
Iowa State tight end Charlie Kolar won the 32nd William V. Campbell Trophy, the “Academic Heisman,” Tuesday night at the College Football Hall of Fame black-tie dinner put on by the National Football Foundation in Las Vegas. Kolar is the Cyclones’ first All-American who also became an Academic All-American. He graduated last year with 3.99 GPA in mechanical engineering, which ought to answer any questions about his academic qualifications. Kolar, a Mackey Award finalist, caught 58 passes for 723 yards and five touchdowns this season. Kolar wins a $25,000 postgraduate scholarship, and I can’t imagine a more deserving winner.