Scott Frost final year at UCF

[Stan Raymond]

and with all that. I'm really not that mad at Frost. He was a horrible HC and a horrible fit here, but I think he knows that and had trepidation in coming here. It was a job that he didn't have the skills for. I'm much more upset with the folks that kept such a person in that job when it was very obvious that he was doing a terrible job and was miserable doing it. It does not take 5 years to see that a HC is going to fail, rarely does it take more than a year to see what direction the team is heading. It was maddening to keep him around and waste years and further drag the program down when it just wasn't working because some folks just wanted Frost to be the HC. Crazy that such a failure of a HC was kept for 5 seasons.

 

[2010sarenevercomingback]

He was a great coach at every level until he got here.

He'll probably be a pretty good coach again if and when he gets out of his own head.

Easy to hate the dude, he was obviously flawed, and dealt with things badly when the hardship came, but man, I was rooting for that redemption arc.

He came home to a storybook possibility, left with his family in tatters, his dad dead, and hated in his home state that he lived and died for.

Ultimately he's got only himself to blame, but I'm still rooting for the guy to figure things out eventually.

 

[tman87]

I remember an interview he did after winning some assistant coach award (national award) when he was at Oregon. I thought to myself then that he would possibly/quite probably be a HC for us in the future. He came off well, seemed to have the charisma and seeming coaching chops to become a very good HC. But there is usually more to the story, as we found out.

His couple of years at UCF were anti-jinxed. He inherited a ton of talent, and his laid back attitude worked for that G5 school, and the state they were located in. There was no real pressure there, and Frost has proven he is a bad coach when there is pressure. I feel a lot of things simply went UCF's way, where a lot of things also contrastingly did not go Frost's way at NU. Some of it is luck of the draw, at least at times.

HC of the Huskers is by default a pressure cooker. He just isn't/wasn't built for it. It probably didn't help that he was our QB for our last championship team, as that made the expectations, and thus the pressure, even more intense.

I do think the way things started out with the lightening-gate game, etc, all just snowballed and he wasn't ready for any of it. But the large majority of the issue was that Frost himself was not cut out for the expectations. He coached scared and his assistants for the most part were yes-men. It became obvious too quickly, that there were issues with trust and accountability with our Frost coached Huskers. He just shit the bed in so many ways as HC for us.

Is he an asshole? I don't know him personally, he came after my time at NU was done. but have heard is can be an arrogant ass. I think we saw that play out pretty clearly the previous 5 years. Confidence is good, but too much and for the wrong reasons is not. I do know T.O. was high on him during his high school years (he was obviously a very talented in-state high school player). When Frost chose Stanford, T.O. wasn't happy about it. Once Frost transferred to NU from Stanford, things were already lined up where we were a juggernaut of a program. But Frost still was our QB for a championship season anc was a good QB for our style of play that T.O. utilized.

People talk shit about Frazier a lot - and some of it is deserved. I knew Tommie really well. He had his faults, but he was also uber-talented and also fit to a T what T.O. needed/wanted in a QB. Tommie was a great QB and player for us, even with his faults/deficencies. I bring this up to correlate to Frost, as he also fit what T.O. needed/wanted in a QB at the time, and we were at the top of the heap of college football so both players excelled as our teams then were great overall anyway. But was Tommie a good coach? No. Was he a great player? Yes. Being a great player does not always make one a good coach.

In any case, the correlation mostly ends there, as I think Frost does have a good offensive mind overall. But as a HC and team leader of a blue-blood, he wasn't cut out for it, and likely never will be. Some people just cannot handle the pressure, and multitude of resonsibilities and leadership qualties needed for a pressure-cooker blue blood program that was starving to get back to prominence.

 

[Cornicator]

I'm more of the mind that year 2 UCF was a fluke. Maybe he was "different," but there's no way he just out of nowhere became the clown that we saw here.

I like Bruce Feldman's theory that Frost went into UCF after O'Leary, who was an asshole, and loosened things up and got players on board. Here, he inherited a lax environment and loosening things up was unnecessary and unwise, so he had no real levers to pull. One trick pony.

Year 2 at UCF wasnt a fluke for Frost. That team was loaded with talent and basically The Ohio State version of the American Conference. They had more future NFL draft picks on that team than 6 other American programs combined.

Prior to his arrival in Lincoln, Frost's whole Coordinator and HC career had involved working with offenses that had not just elite talent, but sometimes a 3-deep of vastly superior offensive talent compared to their opponents.

This allowed him to develop habits where he could gloss over details. It meant he could ignore facets of the game like Special teams, and it also meant defense took a back seat as a priority.

When hired at Nebraska, he suddenly no longer had a dramatically more talented offense. This meant the special teams ignorance would cost him repeatedly. The schematic deficiencicies on defense cost them nearly every week. And judging by results, I'm not sure Frost ever had to prepare a team for close games or late game heroics. Because their situational awareness was shit.

 

[Pipe Line]

Given what was reported about Frosts last minute thoughts 6 years ago, when he jokingly said Matt Davison basically pestered him until he decided to come, there probably was a lot of truth to that, and was some honesty coming from him that came out as humor to cope with the fact that he really would rather have been in Orlando.

I’m betting he probably wanted to enjoy a nice 5-6 year run in Orlando and get them to the playoff before hoping for the Nebraska job to open.

Crazy thing is, depending on who we hypothetically get instead of Frost, wouldn’t have been Rhule, Frost still may have been the guy going into a year 1 in what would have been about 2021.

 

[whoboppin]

I think Frost is just Lenny from of Mice and Men, just wanted to win at Nebraska too bad, cut some corners, was too emotional, and as a result strangled Nebraska football to death (spoilers to of Mice and Men).

Maybe its Stockholm syndrome, but I think he still could have worked out. He just wasn't ready. He probably needed 2-3 more years of seasoning at UCF or another job inbetween but the stars aligned and he went undefeated the same season Riley sh!t the bed. If Frost was like 8-4 in 2017, Nebraska might have taken someone else and given him more time to mature. See the #2ndChoice route

At Nebraska, I think he had some bad luck to start, cut some corners, and it snowballed. Should have had a more experienced staff and COVID certainly didn't help. Probably started boozing a little more like we all did during the lockdown.

 

[Pipe Line]

I think Frost is just Lenny from of Mice and Men, just wanted to win at Nebraska too bad, cut some corners, was too emotional, and as a result strangled Nebraska football to death (spoilers to of Mice and Men).

Maybe its Stockholm syndrome, but I think he still could have worked out. He just wasn't ready. He probably needed 2-3 more years of seasoning at UCF or another job inbetween but the stars aligned and he went undefeated the same season Riley sh!t the bed. If Frost was like 8-4 in 2017, Nebraska might have taken someone else and given him more time to mature. See the #2ndChoice route

At Nebraska, I think he had some bad luck to start, cut some corners, and it snowballed. Should have had a more experienced staff and COVID certainly didn't help. Probably started boozing a little more like we all did during the lockdown.

Not that I disagree, but the job in between part is tough. You don't really get ready for a Power 5 without the Power 5 HC experience. He had P5 experience at Oregon for a good chunk of time. If he has more time at UCF, or a different G5 job, might have gotten worse because his talent would have most likely continued to increase, so his slacking could have slacked more. Probably does middle of the road had he gone to Florida or Tennessee, simply because the other SEC coaches would have worked much harder, but his personnel would have helped some.

 

[whoboppin]

Not that I disagree, but the job in between part is tough. You don't really get ready for a Power 5 without the Power 5 HC experience. He had P5 experience at Oregon for a good chunk of time. If he has more time at UCF, or a different G5 job, might have gotten worse because his talent would have most likely continued to increase, so his slacking could have slacked more. Probably does middle of the road had he gone to Florida or Tennessee, simply because the other SEC coaches would have worked much harder, but his personnel would have helped some.

I agree,he likely would have bene at UCF for about 4-5 years, just saying maybe there's some scenario where he goes 9-3 in 2017 and then jumps to a school like North Carolina or something before Nebraska. The 13-0 season just made him a crazy hot candidate. If it was more of a gradual rise, maybe his route is different

 

[Pipe Line]

I agree,he likely would have bene at UCF for about 4-5 years, just saying maybe there's some scenario where he goes 9-3 in 2017 and then jumps to a school like North Carolina or something before Nebraska. The 13-0 season just made him a crazy hot candidate. If it was more of a gradual rise, maybe his route is different

For sure. Who knows, maybe he takes the Colorado job instead of Mel

 

[huskerj12]

The 13-0 season just made him a crazy hot candidate. If it was more of a gradual rise, maybe his route is different

Yeah obviously I think the dream scenario for a lot of people was having Riley steady the ship and cure the toxicity until like 2020 and retire as a beloved caretaker, while Frost worked on his trade at UCF or a smaller P5 team, and then hand over the reins to Frost at that point. Like you said, Frost's incredible rise + Riley's collapse made fate happen too quickly for that.

Another interesting "what if" for me is if UCF had gone like, 10-3 or 11-2 in 2017, rather than have this miracle season. We probably would have still hired him, but would he have come in with some more hunger and humility and eagerness to learn, along with a legit staff and more helpful oversight? Instead, he thought he and his UCF staff had already mastered the sport and they were just going to roll once he got his ways instilled at NU.

Anyway, I'll be very curious to see where his road goes next. I gotta admit, it could be pretty cool if he bides his time as an analyst or something for a few years and gets his head right, and then took over UCF again for another round whenever Malzahn moves on haha. He's obviously still beloved there no matter what, and maybe with a healthier life at that point he would have a redemption story there. I was so over the dude by the time he hit rock bottom here, but now that NU is in a much much better place, I still have a soft spot in my heart for the Frost I loved rooting for as a kid haha.

 

[Pipe Line]

Yeah obviously I think the dream scenario for a lot of people was having Riley steady the ship and cure the toxicity until like 2020 and retire as a beloved caretaker, while Frost worked on his trade at UCF or a smaller P5 team, and then hand over the reins to Frost at that point. Like you said, Frost's incredible rise + Riley's collapse made fate happen too quickly for that.

Another interesting "what if" for me is if UCF had gone like, 10-3 or 11-2 in 2017, rather than have this miracle season. We probably would have still hired him, but would he have come in with some more hunger and humility and eagerness to learn, along with a legit staff and more helpful oversight? Instead, he thought he and his UCF staff had already mastered the sport and they were just going to roll once he got his ways instilled at NU.

Anyway, I'll be very curious to see where his road goes next. I gotta admit, it could be pretty cool if he bides his time as an analyst or something for a few years and gets his head right, and then took over UCF again for another round whenever Malzahn moves on haha. He's obviously still beloved there no matter what, and maybe with a healthier life at that point he would have a redemption story there. I was so over the dude by the time he hit rock bottom here, but now that NU is in a much much better place, I still have a soft spot in my heart for the Frost I loved rooting for as a kid haha.

My main question really is, can he get his play calling swagger back after essentially a complete career collapse here? That's a lot of mentality and confidence issues that would need to be overcome in my opinion.

 

[greybeardedchild]

My main question really is, can he get his play calling swagger back after essentially a complete career collapse here? That's a lot of mentality and confidence issues that would need to be overcome in my opinion.

Yea, gonna be tough mentally to come back from 25 one score losses and find a confidence in yourself that you can actually win a game.

 

[whoboppin]

Yeah obviously I think the dream scenario for a lot of people was having Riley steady the ship and cure the toxicity until like 2020 and retire as a beloved caretaker, while Frost worked on his trade at UCF or a smaller P5 team, and then hand over the reins to Frost at that point. Like you said, Frost's incredible rise + Riley's collapse made fate happen too quickly for that.

Another interesting "what if" for me is if UCF had gone like, 10-3 or 11-2 in 2017, rather than have this miracle season. We probably would have still hired him, but would he have come in with some more hunger and humility and eagerness to learn, along with a legit staff and more helpful oversight? Instead, he thought he and his UCF staff had already mastered the sport and they were just going to roll once he got his ways instilled at NU.

Anyway, I'll be very curious to see where his road goes next. I gotta admit, it could be pretty cool if he bides his time as an analyst or something for a few years and gets his head right, and then took over UCF again for another round whenever Malzahn moves on haha. He's obviously still beloved there no matter what, and maybe with a healthier life at that point he would have a redemption story there. I was so over the dude by the time he hit rock bottom here, but now that NU is in a much much better place, I still have a soft spot in my heart for the Frost I loved rooting for as a kid haha.

Scott Frost tenure at Nebraska 2.0? Redemption Tour? Rebuild his career and is winning big at a P2 school. Nebraska wins big under Rhule and he retires. Does grizzled veteran Frost come to Nebraska in 2038? OWH would have to publish issue two of the comic book.

 

[Pipe Line]

Yea, gonna be tough mentally to come back from 25 one score losses and find a confidence in yourself that you can actually win a game.

God damn was it really that many?

 

[...TrueColors...]

and with all that. I'm really not that mad at Frost. He was a horrible HC and a horrible fit here, but I think he knows that and had trepidation in coming here. It was a job that he didn't have the skills for. I'm much more upset with the folks that kept such a person in that job when it was very obvious that he was doing a terrible job and was miserable doing it. It does not take 5 years to see that a HC is going to fail, rarely does it take more than a year to see what direction the team is heading. It was maddening to keep him around and waste years and further drag the program down when it just wasn't working because some folks just wanted Frost to be the HC. Crazy that such a failure of a HC was kept for 5 seasons.

I don’t disagree entirely with your take here. What I’ll say is that I truly don’t count 2020 against any coach in any sport given the circumstances. There was a time where Penn St and Michigan were like 0-8 in that 2020 year. And after 2021 I’m not sure I would have agreed with firing someone in those circumstances either.

We also do have to take into account the program politics at that time. Essentially when you went to make a move, it had to come at a time where there simply wasn’t a single argument for Frost left for anyone to make. That clearly happened that night after GaSouthern as the same people who backed Frost the year before were the ones cutting the check for his buyout.

I am always going to lean towards giving coaches more time rather than blow everything up. Further, the head coach at Nebraska will always have my full support until the day he’s no longer at Nebraska.

 

[slattimer]

Frost thought he was god's gift to Nebraska when we hired him.

He came in arrogant as all get out and it was evident.

There were SO MANY rumors when he was here. Were some bullshit? Of course. That's just some horse shit fan that got tired of Frost and he thought be starting rumors that would derail the frosted one. It happens with every fanbase.

But I'm always willing to bet some of those rumors were true. Some of them just made too much sense. Why? Because it showed on the field. Frost wasn't just bad here. He was fucking horrific. And there were still idiots who defended him all the way until his final hour here. Hell, there probably still are people that defend him.

He caught lightening in a bottle with UCF. That's it.

The way he came in and basically trashed how everyone since Doc Thom was telling. He's arrogant as hell, always like he knew better. Ran into him when he was a GA at the grapes. Talked very briefly, asked what he thought about Callahan...it was the same thing..."they aren't doing things the "right way" up there."

 

[greybeardedchild]

God damn was it really that many?

I have no idea. Felt like it. Pulled a number out of my ass.

 

[huskerj12]

Scott Frost tenure at Nebraska 2.0? Redemption Tour? Rebuild his career and is winning big at a P2 school. Nebraska wins big under Rhule and he retires. Does grizzled veteran Frost come to Nebraska in 2038? OWH would have to publish issue two of the comic book.

Coming to a sideline near you in 2038....

 

[slattimer]

If Frost and UCF don't beat Auburn in the bowl game, you might see a completely different story here IMO. He spoke about that win at one of the clinics I went to, and it's basically, our shit doesn't stink and we can beat more with less because we're smarter than everyone....

 

[Pipe Line]

If Frost and UCF don't beat Auburn in the bowl game, you might see a completely different story here IMO. He spoke about that win at one of the clinics I went to, and it's basically, our shit doesn't stink and we can beat more with less because we're smarter than everyone....

I remember telling my friends at the time that UCF was gonna get fuckin smoked, and that I couldn't wait for Frost to really get here and get going because of what he would do with the talent he could recruit to P5 football with that offense.