Four Thoughts on Scott Frost’s Return to UCF

T.J. Birkel

In a somewhat surprising development, Scott Frost was named head coach at the University of Central Florida over the weekend. As most Husker fans know, it will be his second stint at UCF. After laying low since being fired by Nebraska in 2022, Frost is back on the major college football scene in a big way. Here are four thoughts on his return to Orlando. 

When it Comes to Frost, It’s Complicated for Nebraska Fans. Over the summer, we did a series on the Common Fan Podcast called The Reckoning, looking back at every coach of the post-Osborne era and trying to assess what went wrong for Nebraska football since TO’s retirement. Our episode on Frost, titled How in the World Did Scott Frost Not Work at Nebraska, is our most viewed and most downloaded episode ever. The multitude of comments we received in reaction to that episode indicate there is a lot of anger among the fan base about how the Frost era turned out. 

I’m genuinely happy that Frost will get another shot at being a head coach. It will never not be shocking to me that his tenure at Nebraska went so poorly. Yes, there were rumors about personal and professional shortcomings, lack of attention to detail, being late to meetings, lack of commitment to recruiting, all sorts of things. Most of us will never know the extent to which any of that stuff was or wasn’t true. But I do believe he desperately wanted to make it work at Nebraska. He wanted to do it for his father, for Tom Osborne, for the entire state. Did the weight of the job become too much for him? Quite possibly. Ultimately, he owns his record and any mistakes he might have made at Nebraska. There’s no hiding from that. But for me, he’ll always be a Husker legend as a player, and that counts for a lot. My sense is, most Husker fans are happy that he’ll get a shot at redemption, even if they’re still a bit salty about how his time in Lincoln played out. Hopefully he learned from his failed stint at Nebraska, and hopefully he finds both success and peace in his second go-round at Central Florida. 

Now, if he leads the Knights to the playoffs in the very weak Big 12 before Nebraska makes the CFP, that will severely test any good will Husker fans might be feeling… 

Impressive Bounce Back. In case you’ve forgotten, Frost was fired three games into the 2022 season. He stayed out of coaching during the rest of the 2022 and the 2023 seasons, and spent this year on staff with the Los Angeles Rams. Often, it takes some time for fired coaches to work their way back up into the ranks of another top job at a power conference program. It wouldn’t have been surprising to see…

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