As Mark Farley drove across the state of Iowa on Thursday, making recruiting stops for his Northern Iowa football program, he took time to explain his definition of a "grass coach."
Safe to say Scott Frost is a grass coach.
"In my terminology, a grass coach is a guy who can get on the field and show you how to do it as much as being in a classroom and telling you how to do it," Farley said. "When you get on the grass, it's showing a guy how to move, how to react."
Frost, introduced Sunday as Nebraska's head coach, coached linebackers at Northern Iowa in 2007 and added the title of co-defensive coordinator in 2008. The Panthers were a combined 24-4 in those seasons, including 3-2 in FCS playoff games.
Yes, Farley said, he's aware of video this season of the 42-year-old Frost running option plays as a quarterback against his Central Florida defense as it prepared to face Navy's triple-option attack.
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Turns out, it was nothing new.
In 2008, as Northern Iowa prepared for an FCS playoff game, Frost was dissatisfied with the speed at which UNI's scout team was simulating New Hampshire's spread offense.
"Scott got excited and said, 'Let me do it,' and became the quarterback for an afternoon," said Farley, 54, who recently completed his 17th season as UNI's head coach.
"He did a great job, too. The main thing is, the players saw the passion and saw the emphasis he put on that part of the game. When players sense that, I think they respond better."
Farley will have a keen interest in Nebraska in 2018 — not only because of Frost's hiring but because the Huskers have three full-time, on-field assistants who coached under Farley in the Panther program. Mario Verduzco coached quarterbacks at UNI from 2001-14, Erik Chinander guided tight ends from 2004-09, and Jovan Dewitt served as defensive coordinator/linebackers coach from 2009-11.
In addition, new Husker offensive analyst Frank Verducci was a UNI assistant in 2014.
Verduzco will coach quarterbacks at Nebraska, Chinander will be the defensive coordinator, and Dewitt will guide the outside linebackers while also leading the special teams.
Each has earned everything they've gotten in coaching, Farley said.
"What you have at Nebraska is a bunch of great men," he said.
Verduzco drew special praise from Farley.
"The quality and detail he puts into his work is as good as I've seen from anybody at any position," Farley said. "He can speak on quarterback play for hours on end. And he puts it in a way that's understandable and easily retained. I'm a defensive guy. But he spoke the quarterback language in a way that I understood."
Eric Sanders evidently understood Verduzco as well, as Sanders was named 2007 Missouri Valley Conference offensive player of the year after completing 75.2 percent of his passes — an FCS record.
"We had all kinds of quarterbacks, and Mario was able to adapt from a drop-back system into a spread system, and back and forth," Farley said.
Meanwhile, Farley retains a vivid memory of Chinander, as an assistant at Ellsworth (Iowa) Community College in 2003, coaching at a UNI summer camp.
"When I watched him teaching, he was exceptionally articulate — he could get players to understand what he was trying to teach in a very short time," Farley said. "His teaching capability is what sold me on him. Then, when he came here, he was a grinder — in the office at 5 in the morning and the last one to leave. That's when he was very young and not getting paid much to do it.
"He's got a great passion."
Same goes for Dewitt, who arrived at UNI from St. Norbert, an NCAA Division III program in Wisconsin.
"His intelligence is off the charts," Farley said.
Farley recalls Dewitt in 2008 waiting two hours in a concourse outside his office for a chance to meet with the head coach in hopes of landing a job.
"Jovan was much like Mario, Scott and Erik," Farley said. "When you first meet them, they have a way they can articulate that makes things very understandable. When I saw that from Jovan, I decided to let him interview for the job a few weeks later — and, of course, hired him."
With Dewitt guiding the defense (he took over the year after Frost left to coach receivers at Oregon), UNI twice reached the FCS playoffs and posted a 24-11 record overall.
Frost arrived at Northern Iowa in 2007 after spending 2006 as a graduate assistant at Kansas State under Ron Prince. Although Farley at that time remembered Frost most for being a rugged option quarterback at Nebraska, Farley quickly learned Frost's intelligence was such that he could adapt to coaching linebackers.
However, Frost's most impressive quality, Farley said, was an ability to build strong relationships with players.
Frost evolved into a coach who related well with the entire defense, which is why Farley promoted him to co-defensive coordinator in 2008.
"With a lot of guys I hire, they have a huge upside," Farley said. "They just need an opportunity. When Scott got this opportunity, I think it opened up other opportunities for him. I knew it was a short-term thing, but at the same time he improved our football team while he was here, and that's what mattered."
Farley evidently is adept at finding good assistants. After all, he's 135-68 at UNI (.665), including 15-8 in FCS playoff games.
"It's hard to do anymore," he said of lasting 17 seasons as a head coach in one spot. "You've got to keep doing it different ways. Times change, kids change. Offense and defense change. You have to be able to adapt and adjust."
And take the teachings to the practice fields.