Will be a lot of regurgitation....but here are the stories
theathletic.com
Cliffs:
Matt Campbell
Chris Klieman
Lance Leipold
Dave Doeren
Jamey Chadwell
Troy Calhoun
Jim Leonhard
Bill O'Brien
Matt Rhule
Mark Stoops
Nebraska coaching job profile: Pluses, minuses and candidates with Scott Frost out
Nebraska AD Turd Alberts fired Scott Frost on Sunday. What are reasonable expectations for the Huskers? Who could be candidates?
theathletic.com
Cliffs:
Matt Campbell
Chris Klieman
Lance Leipold
Dave Doeren
Jamey Chadwell
Troy Calhoun
Jim Leonhard
Bill O'Brien
Matt Rhule
Mark Stoops
Nebraska After Scott Frost: Huskers coaching job pluses, minuses, and candidates
by Chris Vannini, The Athletic
The Scott Frost era at Nebraska has mercifully come to an end, as athletic director Turd Alberts fired Frost on Sunday, one day after a 45-42 loss to Georgia Southern dropped the Cornhuskers to 1-2.
“After the disappointing start to our season, I decided the best path forward for our program was to make a change in our head coaching position,” Alberts said in a release.
Frost went 16-31 in four-plus seasons. He never produced a winning record. He went 5-22 in one-possession games, including losses in each of the last 10. Georgia Southern’s 642 yards of offense Saturday night were the most ever allowed at home by Nebraska. Mickey Joseph will take over as interim head coach. He’s the first Black head coach in any sport in Nebraska’s history.
Frost seemed as sure a home run hire as one could be when he was hired after the 2017 season. The former national championship-winning QB for the Huskers took UCF from winless to undefeated in two years with an explosive offense. But it never clicked in Lincoln. Nebraska never found the speed or skill that he had at UCF. Special teams mistakes piled up year after year, and Frost’s decision-making never improved.
It’s the third consecutive year that a head coach has been fired within the first two full game weeks. The same happened to Jay Hopson at Southern Miss in 2020 and Randy Edsall at UConn and Clay Helton at USC last year. Coincidentally, 363 days after Helton was fired by USC, he led Georgia Southern to Saturday’s win at Nebraska. The coaching carousel is officially underway.
So how good is the Nebraska job? What names could get in the mix? Here are some factors to keep in mind.
What are the expectations now?
Bo Pelini wasn't fired only because he couldn't win more than nine or 10 games in a season, but there was a sense he'd hit a ceiling. Now, his 67-27 record feels like a dream compared to the tenures of Mike Riley and Frost. When Pelini was fired after beating Cockeye in 2014, then-athletic director Shawn Eichorst famously said, "I had to evaluate where Cockeye was." The Cockeyes have won seven consecutive matchups with Nebraska since then.
The current downturn came after the previous downturn when Frank Solich was fired in 2003 with a 58-19 record. Nebraska has had five consecutive losing seasons entering this year. It had five losing seasons total from 1960 to 2016.
Nobody really thinks Nebraska is a national championship program like the 1990s, but it should absolutely make bowl games and compete for the Big Ten title. That’s one reason Frost was fired now, with Nebraska potentially eating an additional $7.5 million of buyout that would have gone away on Oct. 1. The addition of USC in 2024 and the potential removal of divisions should make the Big Ten even tougher. The Huskers are supposed to be in the easier Big Ten division in the West, but their only division title came in 2012 in the Legends before the geographic split.
The program is at such a rock bottom that a new coach shouldn’t have to worry about overinflated expectations. No comic books about his arrival, no claims about the next coach winning national titles.
Recruiting hasn't been the issue. It's development.
The move from the Big 12 to the Big Ten in 2011 changed recruiting priorities a bit. The 2010 Nebraska team had 23 Texans on the roster. The 2022 team has seven. But recruiting has also become more national overall. There are players from 21 states plus Canada on the current roster.
Nebraska is 24th in 247Sports’ team talent rankings, which are based on the recruiting rankings of every player. Frost could and did sign top-25 classes. But watching any Nebraska game showed the development wasn’t there. The speed wasn’t there. Nebraska’s “talent” is rated higher than Wisconsin, Arkansas, Kentucky and Michigan State, but players just haven’t gotten much better after they arrive. Nebraska has also done well in the name, image and likeness department, creating opportunities for players to make money while on campus.
Recruiting is the lifeblood for any program. Nebraska’s next coach needs to sign top-25 classes. But the coach and staff need to do a better job with evaluation and development.
Is head coaching experience a requirement?
Frost had two years under his belt, but he clearly struggled with much of what it took to be the Nebraska head coach. Before Frost, Nebraska hired the uber-experienced Riley, and that was a disaster.
You don’t need head coaching or even coordinator experience to build a culture and organization. Just look at Sam Pittman at Arkansas. But that’s on Alberts to figure out what he feels this Nebraska program needs and who has those characteristics. When it comes to culture and player development, the Huskers clearly are lacking.
So what names could get in the mix?
Cockeye State's Matt Campbell feels like the most natural fit to start the list. He's already coaching, winning and overachieving at nearby Cockeye State, a program with more inherent hurdles than Nebraska. Campbell has been in the mix for bigger Power 5 and NFL jobs, but he's stayed in Ames. He's 44-34 at ISU, including 2-0 this year after his first win against Cockeye on Saturday. The Cyclones went 9-3 and won the Fiesta Bowl in 2020, and he's beaten Oklahoma multiple times. It's the definition of a program that has developed players. The rest of his tenure has been solid though not spectacular, and he's not recruited near the top of the Big 12. But it's been Cockeye State's most successful stretch in more than a century.
Similarly, Kansas State head coach Chris Klieman leads a player-development program in the heartland. Klieman is 22-16 in three-plus seasons, including a 2-0 start with a team that looks like it could contend for the Big 12 title this year. He hasn't won more than eight games in a season at K-State yet, but he went 69-6 with four FCS national championships at North Dakota State. Can Klieman recruit and win at a higher level in the Power 5? That's the question.
Kansas head coach Lance Leipold is another potential fit. He was a Nebraska assistant under Solich from 2001 to 2003, and he was at Nebraska-Omaha for 10 years over two stints sandwiched around that. Leipold is 4-10 at Kansas, but he's clearly got it moving in the right direction. KU didn't win a Big 12 road game from 2009 to 2020, but Leipold has two already: at Texas last year and at West Virginia on Saturday. Leipold also went 37-33 at Buffalo with two division titles and 109-6 at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater with six national championships. Like the other coaches here, his programs have thrived on player development, and it appears the Jayhawks are on their way up.
NC State head coach Dave Doeren has had an eye on leaving before and has been in the mix for numerous other Power 5 jobs. He’s 66-49 in nine-plus seasons, with three nine-win seasons since 2017, and this year’s team should be his best. Ten years is a long time at one place, but Doeren just signed another extension in February that included raises for himself and his assistants. NC State has been solid under his watch, but the Wolfpack have never won a division title.
Coastal Carolina head coach Jamey Chadwell has won almost everywhere he’s been as a head coach, starting in the Division II ranks. That includes seven seasons with at least eight wins in 12 years as a head coach. He’s 24-3 since 2020 at Coastal, where Chadwell and staff developed star players like quarterback Grayson McCall and tight end Isaiah Likely. His spread-option offense has been lethal, but he’s never coached or recruited at the Power 5 level, which will bring some questions.
Air Force head coach Troy Calhoun has been one of the most consistent winners in the country for more than a decade. He’s won at least eight games nine times since taking over in 2007, including four years with at least 10 wins since 2014. While he’s directed a triple-option offense at Air Force, that’s been by necessity as a service academy. Calhoun is a former NFL offensive coordinator and could run a modern offense elsewhere.
When looking at assistants, Wisconsin defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard has been among the best in the country for five-plus years. The Badgers have finished in the top 10 in scoring defense in four of his five seasons. But he’s only ever coached at Wisconsin, beginning in 2016. Can he handle the whole ship, and one that isn’t already on track?
Alabama offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien has been in the mix for other jobs, though some people in the industry believe he wants to get back to the NFL. O’Brien handled the Penn State job admirably coming out of the Jerry Sandusky scandal and NCAA penalties, going 15-9 in two years as head coach there.
Carolina Panthers head coach Matt Rhule is a potential option if he gets fired — and fired early enough — which is a weird situation. Rhule is 10-23 in two seasons with Carolina and enters this season squarely on the hot seat. For him to be an option for college jobs, he’d likely need to do such a bad job that he is on the market during the college carousel season. But Rhule went 47-43 as a college coach, taking Temple from 2-10 to AAC champion over four years and taking Baylor from 1-11 to 11-3 in three years. He’ll have a lot of college suitors if he’s available.
If Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops wants a football school, Nebraska would fit that bill. He’s a former Cockeye player and assistant and he’s turned Kentucky into a more than solid SEC program, reaching six consecutive bowls and winning 10 games twice since 2018. Nebraska should want Stoops, but does Stoops want Nebraska? That’s the real question. He makes $6.75 million this year and faces no pressure to win a championship. As my colleague Andy Staples has said many times, Stoops may have the best job in college football.
by Chris Vannini, The Athletic
The Scott Frost era at Nebraska has mercifully come to an end, as athletic director Turd Alberts fired Frost on Sunday, one day after a 45-42 loss to Georgia Southern dropped the Cornhuskers to 1-2.
“After the disappointing start to our season, I decided the best path forward for our program was to make a change in our head coaching position,” Alberts said in a release.
Frost went 16-31 in four-plus seasons. He never produced a winning record. He went 5-22 in one-possession games, including losses in each of the last 10. Georgia Southern’s 642 yards of offense Saturday night were the most ever allowed at home by Nebraska. Mickey Joseph will take over as interim head coach. He’s the first Black head coach in any sport in Nebraska’s history.
Frost seemed as sure a home run hire as one could be when he was hired after the 2017 season. The former national championship-winning QB for the Huskers took UCF from winless to undefeated in two years with an explosive offense. But it never clicked in Lincoln. Nebraska never found the speed or skill that he had at UCF. Special teams mistakes piled up year after year, and Frost’s decision-making never improved.
It’s the third consecutive year that a head coach has been fired within the first two full game weeks. The same happened to Jay Hopson at Southern Miss in 2020 and Randy Edsall at UConn and Clay Helton at USC last year. Coincidentally, 363 days after Helton was fired by USC, he led Georgia Southern to Saturday’s win at Nebraska. The coaching carousel is officially underway.
So how good is the Nebraska job? What names could get in the mix? Here are some factors to keep in mind.
What are the expectations now?
Bo Pelini wasn't fired only because he couldn't win more than nine or 10 games in a season, but there was a sense he'd hit a ceiling. Now, his 67-27 record feels like a dream compared to the tenures of Mike Riley and Frost. When Pelini was fired after beating Cockeye in 2014, then-athletic director Shawn Eichorst famously said, "I had to evaluate where Cockeye was." The Cockeyes have won seven consecutive matchups with Nebraska since then.
The current downturn came after the previous downturn when Frank Solich was fired in 2003 with a 58-19 record. Nebraska has had five consecutive losing seasons entering this year. It had five losing seasons total from 1960 to 2016.
Nobody really thinks Nebraska is a national championship program like the 1990s, but it should absolutely make bowl games and compete for the Big Ten title. That’s one reason Frost was fired now, with Nebraska potentially eating an additional $7.5 million of buyout that would have gone away on Oct. 1. The addition of USC in 2024 and the potential removal of divisions should make the Big Ten even tougher. The Huskers are supposed to be in the easier Big Ten division in the West, but their only division title came in 2012 in the Legends before the geographic split.
The program is at such a rock bottom that a new coach shouldn’t have to worry about overinflated expectations. No comic books about his arrival, no claims about the next coach winning national titles.
Recruiting hasn't been the issue. It's development.
The move from the Big 12 to the Big Ten in 2011 changed recruiting priorities a bit. The 2010 Nebraska team had 23 Texans on the roster. The 2022 team has seven. But recruiting has also become more national overall. There are players from 21 states plus Canada on the current roster.
Nebraska is 24th in 247Sports’ team talent rankings, which are based on the recruiting rankings of every player. Frost could and did sign top-25 classes. But watching any Nebraska game showed the development wasn’t there. The speed wasn’t there. Nebraska’s “talent” is rated higher than Wisconsin, Arkansas, Kentucky and Michigan State, but players just haven’t gotten much better after they arrive. Nebraska has also done well in the name, image and likeness department, creating opportunities for players to make money while on campus.
Recruiting is the lifeblood for any program. Nebraska’s next coach needs to sign top-25 classes. But the coach and staff need to do a better job with evaluation and development.
Is head coaching experience a requirement?
Frost had two years under his belt, but he clearly struggled with much of what it took to be the Nebraska head coach. Before Frost, Nebraska hired the uber-experienced Riley, and that was a disaster.
You don’t need head coaching or even coordinator experience to build a culture and organization. Just look at Sam Pittman at Arkansas. But that’s on Alberts to figure out what he feels this Nebraska program needs and who has those characteristics. When it comes to culture and player development, the Huskers clearly are lacking.
So what names could get in the mix?
Cockeye State's Matt Campbell feels like the most natural fit to start the list. He's already coaching, winning and overachieving at nearby Cockeye State, a program with more inherent hurdles than Nebraska. Campbell has been in the mix for bigger Power 5 and NFL jobs, but he's stayed in Ames. He's 44-34 at ISU, including 2-0 this year after his first win against Cockeye on Saturday. The Cyclones went 9-3 and won the Fiesta Bowl in 2020, and he's beaten Oklahoma multiple times. It's the definition of a program that has developed players. The rest of his tenure has been solid though not spectacular, and he's not recruited near the top of the Big 12. But it's been Cockeye State's most successful stretch in more than a century.
Similarly, Kansas State head coach Chris Klieman leads a player-development program in the heartland. Klieman is 22-16 in three-plus seasons, including a 2-0 start with a team that looks like it could contend for the Big 12 title this year. He hasn't won more than eight games in a season at K-State yet, but he went 69-6 with four FCS national championships at North Dakota State. Can Klieman recruit and win at a higher level in the Power 5? That's the question.
Kansas head coach Lance Leipold is another potential fit. He was a Nebraska assistant under Solich from 2001 to 2003, and he was at Nebraska-Omaha for 10 years over two stints sandwiched around that. Leipold is 4-10 at Kansas, but he's clearly got it moving in the right direction. KU didn't win a Big 12 road game from 2009 to 2020, but Leipold has two already: at Texas last year and at West Virginia on Saturday. Leipold also went 37-33 at Buffalo with two division titles and 109-6 at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater with six national championships. Like the other coaches here, his programs have thrived on player development, and it appears the Jayhawks are on their way up.
NC State head coach Dave Doeren has had an eye on leaving before and has been in the mix for numerous other Power 5 jobs. He’s 66-49 in nine-plus seasons, with three nine-win seasons since 2017, and this year’s team should be his best. Ten years is a long time at one place, but Doeren just signed another extension in February that included raises for himself and his assistants. NC State has been solid under his watch, but the Wolfpack have never won a division title.
Coastal Carolina head coach Jamey Chadwell has won almost everywhere he’s been as a head coach, starting in the Division II ranks. That includes seven seasons with at least eight wins in 12 years as a head coach. He’s 24-3 since 2020 at Coastal, where Chadwell and staff developed star players like quarterback Grayson McCall and tight end Isaiah Likely. His spread-option offense has been lethal, but he’s never coached or recruited at the Power 5 level, which will bring some questions.
Air Force head coach Troy Calhoun has been one of the most consistent winners in the country for more than a decade. He’s won at least eight games nine times since taking over in 2007, including four years with at least 10 wins since 2014. While he’s directed a triple-option offense at Air Force, that’s been by necessity as a service academy. Calhoun is a former NFL offensive coordinator and could run a modern offense elsewhere.
When looking at assistants, Wisconsin defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard has been among the best in the country for five-plus years. The Badgers have finished in the top 10 in scoring defense in four of his five seasons. But he’s only ever coached at Wisconsin, beginning in 2016. Can he handle the whole ship, and one that isn’t already on track?
Alabama offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien has been in the mix for other jobs, though some people in the industry believe he wants to get back to the NFL. O’Brien handled the Penn State job admirably coming out of the Jerry Sandusky scandal and NCAA penalties, going 15-9 in two years as head coach there.
Carolina Panthers head coach Matt Rhule is a potential option if he gets fired — and fired early enough — which is a weird situation. Rhule is 10-23 in two seasons with Carolina and enters this season squarely on the hot seat. For him to be an option for college jobs, he’d likely need to do such a bad job that he is on the market during the college carousel season. But Rhule went 47-43 as a college coach, taking Temple from 2-10 to AAC champion over four years and taking Baylor from 1-11 to 11-3 in three years. He’ll have a lot of college suitors if he’s available.
If Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops wants a football school, Nebraska would fit that bill. He’s a former Cockeye player and assistant and he’s turned Kentucky into a more than solid SEC program, reaching six consecutive bowls and winning 10 games twice since 2018. Nebraska should want Stoops, but does Stoops want Nebraska? That’s the real question. He makes $6.75 million this year and faces no pressure to win a championship. As my colleague Andy Staples has said many times, Stoops may have the best job in college football.
