With the return of Scott Frost to Lincoln, it’s fair to say Nebraska football will return to glory. Here’s why that’s the case.
It’s no secret that Nebraska football is far removed from the glory years of the 1990’s and the program itself is a shell of what it once was. Following the retirement of Hall of Fame Coach Tom Osbourne, Nebraska has hired and fired four coaches in the last 20 years. However, this coaching search proved to bring something Husker fans have been looking for the last five years: Hope.
Hope came in the form of UCF head coach and former Husker quarterback Scott Frost. Frost was under center the last time Nebraska brought home a national championship in 1997. Following a brief pro career, Frost quickly rose through the coaching ranks, from grad assistant to FCS assistant, to FBS assistant, to head coach, all before he turned 41 years old.
Frost was hired as head coach on December 2nd, 2016 and has since caused a buzz of excitement in Lincoln and across the entire state of Nebraska and for good reason. Here are five reasons why he will restore the scarlet and cream colors of Nebraska.
5. Frost is a proven winner
Frost has been on winning teams since his days as a quarterback in Lincoln. He compiled a 24-2 career record in his two seasons as starter for the Cornhuskers, including their championship in his senior season. Frost returned to the coaching ranks GA at Nebraska and Kansas State before headed to FCS-power Northern Iowa. UNI made the FCS playoffs in his two seasons in Cedar Falls, and Frost was named co-defensive coordinator before his last season.
Chip Kelly took notice and hired Frost as his wide receiver’s coach before the 2009 season. Following Kelly’s departure following the 2012 season, he was named offensive coordinator, replacing Mark Helfrich who had been promoted to head coach. In his six seasons as a Ducks assistant, Frost was apart of four BCS bowl games and a College Football Playoff championship game.
When he was hired as head coach at UCF, the Knights were coming off of an 0-12 season, the lowest point for any Division I program. In his first season, Frost took UCF to a bowl game, his second season, as many know, was a storybook one as the Knights finished with a 13-0 record and are self-proclaimed “National Champions”. Nebraska fans have been looking for a coach who is a consistent, high-level winner, and they have finally found one.
4. Explosive offense
It’s no coincidence that many of Frost’s coaching stops have resulted in big time offensive numbers. During his tenure under Chip Kelly and Mark Helfrich, Frost was a key part of the explosive Oregon offenses that revolutionized college football offenses with their sheer speed and quickness. Frost brought a little bit of that “Nebraska mentality” to his players as well, being noted of developing very good blocking receivers while he was receivers coach, which is a crucial part to any offense.
The year before Frost arrived at Central Florida, the Knights offense was the 126th rated offense out of 128 FBS teams, averaging only 268.4 yards per game and scoring 13.9 points per game. This past season, the Knights boasted the #1 offense in all of college football, averaging 530.9 yards per game and averaging a mind-boggling 48.2 points per game.
Frost’s offensive philosophy will be sure to excite Husker fans, who long of the days when Nebraska used to score 40-50 points a game with ease. It may not be in the hard-nosed, option style Husker fans remember, but it’s still going to come with the speed they once had.
3. Florida recruiting
Obviously, with being the coach of a Florida team, Frost had the distinct advantage of being located in the hottest recruiting bed in the whole country in the state of Florida. On the Knights roster, there are 92 players on the team from the state of Florida, which is still mind-boggling, even for a school that is based in Florida, however, University of Central Florida has the largest undergraduate enrollment for one school in the entire United States.
Out of state recruiting was a key reason why Nebraska was successful in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Players such as Turner Gill, Roger Craig, Tommie Frazier, and Will Shields all left their home states to come play for the mighty Cornhuskers. Today, it’s not so easy, schools such as Nebraska are left behind simply because of location. It’s hard to recruit to a university in a small population state where the weather changes faster than a NASCAR pit crew changes a tire.
But if Frost is able to keep that Florida pipeline intact, Nebraska’s talent will become infinitely better than before. Expecting four and five stars to start coming left and right is a little absurd, but getting the three stars who want to work is a big step.
2. Coaching lineage
If you take an in-depth look at the men Scott Frost has played for and coached under, the resume is rather impressive. He began his collegiate career at Stanford under Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh and played two seasons in Palo Alto before transferring back home to Nebraska to play another Hall of Fame coach, Tom Osbourne. Not often a player plays for two hall of fame head coaches.
Once he joined the coaching ranks, He was an assistant to Mark Farley, one of the longest-tenured coaches in FCS as he’s been at UNI since 2001. He then served under Chip Kelly, who has been a head coach at the Pro and Collegiate level. The common thread between all of these coaches is that a majority of them are innovators. Osbourne’s Nebraska I, Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense, and Chip Kelly’s track-speed spread offense. Frost has learned from some of the greatest minds in the history of the game.
Taking in all of the lessons he learned from these innovative minds, Frost’s offense at UCF racked up the points and the yards this season as the Knights had a balanced attack with duo of quarterback McKenzie Milton and running back Adrian Killins Jr.
1. Frost knows Nebraska
Frost grew up in the state of Nebraska, he played his high school ball in tiny Wood River, Nebraska, a town a little over 100 miles away from Lincoln. He then returned home following two seasons at Stanford and engineered the Huskers to a two-year record of 26-2 including the Big 12 championship and a share of the national championship with Michigan. It’s easy to see that Frost knows how the program works.
Even while he was off coaching at Oregon and UCF, Frost always kept a close eye on his alma mater from afar as he stated in his introductory press conference.
"“When you’re coaching, you’re pretty busy with your own team, but I was able to watch this from afar. From afar, it didn’t look like the Nebraska that I knew. I haven’t been in this building to see all these changes. This place is spectacular. They’ve done an unbelievable job with these facilities. I think, I say the time is right because everything is set up here for us to do what we have to do to get this place back and I know with all the support of the people in this state and all the former players and the leadership on this university, I know we can get it done.”"
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It’s clear that Frost loves Nebraska football and will do anything to bring it back to its former glory. Personally, I think he was the only coach in the search that can make that happen, with no due disrespect to the other candidates such as Matt Campbell or Mike Leach. It will take time and it may not bring the exact same results that Devaney and Osbourne brought, but Frost will make Nebraska football a great program in the future.