Scott Frost returns to college football after a disastrous Nebraska tenure that ended with his firing just three games into the 2022 season, finishing 16–31 over four-plus years. Once heralded as a rising star after transforming UCF with a 13–0 season in 2017, Frost’s Nebraska stint proved a harsh reality check. Now back at UCF, Frost sounds relieved to return to familiar ground — and just as eager to shift blame away from himself.
Asked Tuesday at Big 12 Media Days what he learned from his humbling tenure with the Huskers, Frost offered a deflection rather than reflection.
“Don’t take the wrong job,” Frost said, via The Athletic’s Chris Vannini.
It’s a telling remark from a coach who continues to favor excuses over accountability. Rather than acknowledge the poor results and repeated late-game collapses that defined his Nebraska tenure, Frost pointed to the job itself, not his performance in it, as the problem.
This revisionist narrative conveniently ignores how badly things fell apart in Lincoln, where Frost was hailed as a savior but delivered Nebraska’s worst stretch in 60 years. The Huskers went an astonishing 5–22 in one-score games under Frost, a staggering indictment of game management and preparedness — two things squarely in a head coach’s control.
Frost, however, sees himself more as a victim of circumstance than the architect of his own downfall.
“I said I wouldn’t leave (UCF) unless it was someplace you could win a national championship,” Frost said, according to Vannini. “I got tugged in a direction to try to help my alma mater and didn’t really want to do it. It wasn’t a good move. I’m lucky to get back to a place where I was a lot happier.”
That self-pitying narrative glosses over just how thoroughly he was backed at Nebraska — financially, administratively and emotionally by one of the most passionate fan bases in college sports — and how little he delivered in return.
Frost told Sports Illustrated in June that he had no interest in returning to college football and expected to stay in the NFL, where he worked last season as a senior analyst with the Los Angeles Rams. But when Gus Malzahn left UCF for a coordinator job at Florida State, Frost was quick to embrace a reunion in Orlando.
Now, Frost faces the daunting task of rebuilding UCF’s program in the highly competitive Big 12, where past successes won’t carry much weight. Whether he can shed the baggage of his Nebraska tenure and prove he’s more than just a coach with unfulfilled promise remains to be seen.
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