There were excited whispers, a sense of anticipation. A positive buzz filled the room. Things would change now. Scott Frost was coming home and he would right the ship, bring this program back to respectability. Applause and cheers as Frost was formally introduced as the new coach – at Nebraska.
Substitute Central Florida for Nebraska and essentially, you have what took place in Orlando as Frost, the man who pulled UCF out of the dumpster just a few short years ago, was brought back to do it again. Frost is a still youthful looking 49, although perhaps hardened a bit by his recent experience in Lincoln.
When Frost first came to UCF in 2016, he was regarded as one of the nation’s brightest young offensive coordinators and as he built UCF back up, it became very clear that Central Florida was just going to be a stepping stone to bigger and better things. And after Frost guided the Knights to a 13-0 record and a self declared national championship in 2017, he was gone.
To Nebraska, where he had grown up and played quarterback for the Huskers under the legendary Tom Osborne. Nebraska had been up and down since then and had lost its national relevance and Frost was thought to be just the man to restore it. But it never worked.
Sometimes, he seemed close to turning the corner but a 5-22 record in one score games and a 10-26 record in the Big Ten knocked him down and when he lost to Georgia Southern, 45-42, three games into the 2022 season Athletic Director Trev Alberts, who hadn’t hired Frost, let him go.
And that’s where the story really starts. In his first stint at UCF, Frost was known as a players’ coach. He created a much more relaxed atmosphere around the program after taking over from Danny Barrett, who replaced old school George O’Leary when he left before the 2015 season ended. Frost tried to do the same thing at Nebraska, but close observers said that approach, which hadn’t worked for Mike Riley, Frost’s predecessor in Lincoln, was the exact opposite of the discipline the team needed. And when Alberts finally fired Frost, stories began to crop up about a disorganized operation that left Frost in an entirely new light.
Frost, it was said, was often late for practice. He didn’t make recruiting calls. He drank. He threw his players and assistant coaches under the bus and things got so bad at one time that some of his assistants actually went to Alberts and pleaded with him to do something.
How much of this is true is unknowable. It seems totally out of character for Frost, who was dealing with his dad’s terminal illness at the time and could have been affected by that.
But there are things that indicated the program was in disarray. First, Alberts reducing Frost’s buyout, which was hardly a vote of confidence. Then, he fired Frost three weeks before the buyout was to take effect, choosing to pay the full amount rather then wait.
And finally there’s the Dylan Raiola saga. Raiola, the quarterback who Frost’s replacement, Matt Rhule, is building his team around, was one of the top prospects in the country coming out of high school and had strong ties to Nebraska. His father, Dominic, won the Rimington Trophy as the best center in the country while playing for Nebraska. His uncle, Donovan, was Nebraska’s line coach.
Reportedly, Dominic invited Frost to a family function and Frost, at the last minute, backed out despite efforts by Dominic to try and persuade him otherwise.
After that, in May of 2022, Raiola committed to Ohio State, then, in December of 2023, he switched to Georgia. But with Frost now gone, he wound up at Nebraska.
“Coaching is a funny thing,” Frost said after accepting the UCF job for a second time. “You put yourself out there and do the best you can and sometimes it works great and sometimes it doesn’t. It worked great at UCF. You get a lot of praise when things are going well and you take a lot of criticism when they aren’t. You have to take the arrows and the slings as well as the cheers.
“You have good times and bad times everywhere in this game and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. We did the right things here and pushed the right buttons and got it done.” And UCF is betting he can get it done again.