Mike Farrell Sports

College Football Recruiting, Opinion, and Analysis

Feeling Nebraska Nice About Scott Frost’s UCF Return? Nah

Much of the fanbase still salty over coach’s disrespect for position, traditions

Staff
Pin
Sep 10
Sep 10

By Rock Westfall

Scott Frost is returning to where he made his name and fame as a college football head coach. He is back as head coach of the UCF Knights, replacing Gus Malzahn, who cut and ran in failure to become offensive coordinator at Florida State.

In his second season at UCF in 2017, Frost led the Knights to a 13-0 record and a final AP ranking of 6th, although UCF claimed itself a hubristic national championship. It is the only winning season in Frost’s career as a head coach. 

Following that epic season, Frost matriculated home to Nebraska where he had quarterbacked the Cornhuskers to the 1997 national championship. Nebraska celebrated Frost’s arrival as if he were the proverbial knight riding in on his white horse to save the state and its beloved football program. Instead, he went 16-31, never had a winning season, and failed to deliver even a bowl game.

It was bad enough that Frost failed to deliver. His vow that he would force the Big Ten to adapt to his offense became a punchline. But what is hard to forgive, at least for this proud Nebraska native, was his blatant disrespect for the job and the fans whose trust he abused. 

More Sports News

Tall Cold Frosty Ones at Animal House 

It did not take long for Frost to allow Husker Nation’s adoration to go to his head. Frost developed a reputation for loving to have a good time, even at the expense of his football team and responsibilities. Meanwhile, Bill Moos, the athletic director who hired Frost, looked the other way. The immature Frost was unsupervised and unaccountable. That proved to be a fatal combination. 

At the time of Frost’s 2022 firing by Nebraska, respected radio personality Mike’l Severe unloaded a laundry list of transgressions based on sources inside the program. Severe is not a hyperbolic bomb-thrower, which gave weight to the torrid stories by those in the know regarding Frost that included blowing off a recruiting meeting with prized 5-star quarterback Dylan Raiola among a host of other juicy tales.

A small minority of Frost supporters will forever deny the stories. But more individuals on the other side implied, in an indirect Nebraska Nice sort of way, that Severe had it right. Severe is still on the air and nobody directly challenged his reporting, including Frost.

Was The Nebraska Nice Media Complicit? 

Nebraska football means everything to the state and its citizens. The glory years gave Nebraskans immense pride. I witnessed how the 1970 national championship powerfully transformed the state and its self-esteem. Nebraskans such as my grandparents, who didn’t care much about football, could tell you everything about the Big Red in great and obsessive detail, never missing a game on the radio called in those days by legendary Lyell Bremser or on TV when available.

Things have never been the same since that first national championship under Bob Devaney. While Nebraska’s history can serve as an albatross for today’s players and coaches, it is also what they signed up for. This history has also created a major industry within the state: Big Red Media.

Since Devaney delivered that first natty, there has been voracious demand for Nebraska football content. To this day, multiple radio stations cover the program virtually 24-7-365 and there are a host of podcasts, blogs, websites, and Husker-focused publications.

With all of that media comes a fine line. Nebraska media believes that it must preserve good relations at all costs to have access to coaches, players, and power brokers. But this obsession with having access has served as a deterrent to getting to the heart of stories such as Frost’s off-field conduct as Nebraska’s head coach.

It is easy to criticize the Nebraska Nice football media in the state and say that they should ask tougher questions and reveal more of what they know, as Severe did. On the other hand, when reporters obsess over having “access,” they often end up handcuffing themselves to the point where access becomes a liability and their content becomes state-controlled media.

It is also fair to ask how valuable “access” really is in an era when you can watch videos, live or replays, of every press conference and interview from players and coaches. Is access to coach-speak and carefully worded answers really all that valuable? And is protecting coaches actually a virtual form of cutting off access?

Severe and others had plenty of access to insiders who dished the real dirt on what was going on. Yet, not many of those in the know let Husker Nation know until it was too late.

https://twitter.com/LarsAnderson71/status/1609229899792801792

Will Disrespected Husker Fans & Media Forgive Frost and Root for Him? 

I appreciate Nebraska Nice and my countless relatives there who faithfully practice it. However, as someone who has followed the program since Jerry Tagge stuck the ball over the goal line late to beat LSU in the 1971 Orange Bowl to claim that epic first national championship, I don’t have it in me to wish Frost well – especially considering the current state of the Nebraska program.

Matt Rhule has his problems, but he acutely understands and appreciates the program more than Frost did and is putting everything he has into it. As the saying goes, Rhule is more Catholic than the pope.

Scott Frost blatantly took advantage of and abused the hopes, dreams, and blind support of faithful Husker Nation and a compliant media that, more often than not, served as his publicists.

For a Nebraska fan to support Frost would be a blatant act of self-disrespect. The greatest fans in college football, who invest heart, soul, time, and countless thousands of dollars for tickets, gear, and traveling long distances to support the Big Red, did not have a coach who matched their commitment. That is unforgivable.  

Perhaps Frost had to suffer an epic humiliating failure to mature and become the coach Husker Nation thought he was. And nobody loves a comeback story more than Americans, who are a forgiving people.

Thus, while there is no need to rant, rave, scream, poke voodoo dolls, or obsess, there is also no need to purchase swag and play the fool again. Husker Nation did that from 2018 through 2022 and has yet to recover.

Forgive and forget?

I’m not there yet.

Finally, if Frost has success in the much weaker Big 12 while the Huskers struggle in the bruising Big Ten, will Big Red Fans really be feeling Nebraska Nice then?

I sure hope not. 

Category: Tag: , , , , ,
Pin

You’ll Also Like