First things first, let’s get this out of the way: Even before last Saturday’s impressive victory over Purdue, in no way is Scott Frost close to losing his job.

It’s unfortunate that any coach gets fired because of his team’s performance during this weird pandemic season where buy-in might be slim and opt-outs aplenty, but at the end of the day we all need to remember that college football is a business.

But in Frost’s case, Nebraska has made a commitment to the native son from Wood River, and you better believe that commitment is going to last more than 3 or even 4 years, no matter how bad it currently looks.

With that being said, this season especially has raised questions about Frost and what he’s building — or attempting to build — in Lincoln. Here are 5 of them:

Quarterback development

At the beginning of the year, Husker Nation thought it had two Power 5-caliber quarterbacks. Now, does it even have one?

Adrian Martinez had a great start to his college career as a freshman, then suffered the dreaded sophomore slump. But then he wound up getting benched at Northwestern, the 2nd game of the season.

Frost made the correct call to bench Martinez, by the way. The offense was going nowhere that day. A spark was needed. Going with Luke McCaffrey in that moment was a sound coaching move.

But as it turns out, McCaffrey wasn’t the answer. Yes, he’s only a redshirt freshman and learning on the fly against some of the best defenses in the B1G. That’s tough. But the ball doesn’t look good coming out of his hand. He looks just as lost as Martinez did and doesn’t seem to have the arm power a quarterback needs to really hurt a defense that is zeroed in on stopping the run.

McCaffrey is a great athlete, maybe the best on the team. But he’s not a better quarterback than Martinez, at least right now. Martinez enjoyed an efficient outing at Iowa, but the offense continues to not be explosive and is handcuffed by little mistakes that happen over and over. It continues to look less and less like what Frost ran at UCF.

Martinez and McCaffrey’s failures aren’t all on them. It doesn’t look like there’s been much development there. Some of that should be put on Frost and quarterbacks coach Mario Verduzco.

Lack of offensive identity

What’s the plan on offense? What’s Nebraska’s offensive identity under Frost? In Year 3, shouldn’t those 2 questions have clear answers?

It’s hard to say what the Husker offense wants to do. It wants to be fast-paced, sure. Frost and some players are on record saying the offense is quicker-paced when McCaffrey is in. But Martinez is clearly the better option at quarterback. It sounds like there’s a problem there, right?

The offense wants to be dynamic, getting defenses on the their heels. But Nebraska isn’t good at throwing the ball right now and is one-dimensional. Is that because the quarterbacks are struggling, or because the receivers they’re throwing to aren’t getting it done? Unfortunately for Huskers fans, both are true.

To make progress, Frost needs to decide what he wants his team to be on offense, recruit toward it and stick with it. The West division foes that hold winning streaks over Nebraska do that. Wisconsin has an identity. Iowa does, too. Heck, you can even count on Purdue leading the B1G in pass attempts every year.

The love affair with designed quarterback runs

When Joe Shmoe on his couch knows a quarterback draw or power is coming on 3rd-and-long, that’s when when you know things are bad.

At times, especially earlier in the season, the lack of creativity was shocking. It could be because of good reasons, though. Yes, Nebraska’s quarterback situation isn’t where Frost wants it to be. And yeah, neither is receivers group. So putting the ball in your best runner’s hands — that’s either McCaffrey or Martinez — is the safest bet for not turning the ball over.

McCaffrey and Martinez have the most carries on the team. That’s probably happening because Dedrick Mills, the starter at running back, has been hurt and isn’t playing. But even when Mills was on the field, the quarterbacks were usually the ones to run it.

Like Joe Shmoe on his couch, defenses catch on. And in this conference, they catch on quick.

The Illinois game

What the heck was that?

It was Frost’s worst loss of his career as head coach in Lincoln — yep, even worse than “rock bottom” at Michigan in 2018.

After the game, he said his team had no energy. No juice. They acted like they were going to walk into Memorial Stadium and beat poor Illinois.

“I didn’t really see it coming,” Frost said in the postgame press conference. “It was almost like our team thought, ‘We won 1 game, we’re good.’ That’s not how it works in this league, it’s not how it works in life, it’s not how it works in football.”

Both the players and coaches are at fault here. Players shouldn’t look past an opponent — any opponent. Coaches shouldn’t either. And if they see their players aren’t taking the opponent seriously, they need to fix that, right?

It appears that problem wasn’t fixed against the Illini.

Where’s Wan’Dale?

This is one of the more disappointing developments for Huskers fans, as Wan’Dale Robinson has largely been a non-factor this season.

Hopes were high coming into the season, but Robinson, maybe Nebraska’s most dangerous weapon on offense, hasn’t found the All-B1G success everyone expected.

Frost is smart. One of the best architects in the nation to build plays and figure out how to beat a defense. But some will argue he didn’t help his star player out this season, not putting him in the best position to succeed.