Scott Frost's downfall

[BoNeyard]

I'll post this in the rumorville, because I could see some of the posts not being accurate and purely based off rumors people heard, but what really happened with Frost? I'm assuming he was just completely off the rails during the times he wasn't working because there is just no other way to explain his total failure in Lincoln. He had it all at Nebraska including time if he could've just put together one respectable 6 win season. I'd just like to hear what others heard he was up to and did or didn't do that caused such a huge let down and massive failure. If this discussion has already been discussed please post the link to the thread so I can read it. 

 

[Ulty]

Who?

 

[Mavric]

I'll post this in the rumorville, because I could see some of the posts not being accurate and purely based off rumors people heard, but what really happened with Frost? I'm assuming he was just completely off the rails during the times he wasn't working because there is just no other way to explain his total failure in Lincoln. He had it all at Nebraska including time if he could've just put together one respectable 6 win season. I'd just like to hear what others heard he was up to and did or didn't do that caused such a huge let down and massive failure. If this discussion has already been discussed please post the link to the thread so I can read it. 

I think a lot of the off-field stuff is either exaggerated or completely fabricated.  I have a couple of second-hand people who were around he and his wife enough to make me fairly certain that people just want to vilify him and believe whatever is fun to believe.

I think most of what happened was inheriting a crappy situation and then making enough of his own mistakes to not be able to overcome it.  I think our OL and WR recruiting were terrible for several years and the part where we kept missing at the same spots over and over again meant that we were always trying to dig out of a hole.  And we were a bit unlucky that we kept getting better players hurt (Martinez, Fidone, etc.) and ended up with too many of the recruiting hits being head cases (Robinson (or his handlers), Mills, McCaffrey, Washington, etc.).  By the time he got to the end things had gotten better but it wasn't showing up in the win column so it wasn't enough. 

His last couple of years were basically where Rhule was in year one: we were good enough to win more but found enough places to screw up that we kept losing close games.

 

[Street Novelist]

I personally don't think Scott Frost was that good of a recruiter. He also brought with him a system that flourished at UCF, but did not here; primarily because he could not get the caliber of guys needed to run that system, like he did in Florida. For his system to have worked, he needed the horses he had at UCF. But they did not come to Nebraska. I also think he was incredibly stubborn at accepting blame. It was always someone else's fault. He made a lot of poor in-game coaching mistakes. He also made some questionable coaching hires.

 

[Fru]

The Frost era will probably haunt all of us in some way for the rest of our fandom. He was my favorite player as a kid, and now he’ll probably never set foot inside Memorial again or even be shown in a highlight video. 
 

Most coaching hires don’t work out. There’s always an element of chance. As excited as I was when he was hired, I remember thinking “What if this doesn’t work?” But in my mind “doesn’t work” meant …6-6, 7-5. Bowl games but never really threatening for anything beyond that. No one anticipated what was about to happen.
 

In hindsight some things are clearer. Here are some of my thoughts on it.
 

- I don’t think Frost’s coaching experience really prepared him for the rebuild Neb required or the Neb job itself. I don’t think he really honed his craft anywhere. Did he really have to focus on details at Oregon? How hard is it really to be the WR or OC at Oregon? When you’ve got elite talent everywhere, do you really have to focus on details and make sure you do things right like… making sure your Center can reliably snap the ball, or making sure your OL doesn’t false start constantly? How many promising drives fizzled because a 3rd and 1 at midfield turned into a 3rd and 6 and then a punt? 
 

The 0-12 UCF team he took over was a bit of a mirage. It wasn’t a true 0-12 team. In the 7 years before Scott arrived, UCF went to 5 bowls. I think his 12-0 team was just lightning in a bottle.
 

- I never got the sense that he wasn’t trying, or didn’t care, like so many people have claimed. I got the sense that he simply didn’t know how to fix things. Not caring and not knowing aren’t the same thing. I never saw his teams give up in the fashion that Callahan, Bo or Riley teams did, and to me that’s indicative of him caring. His teams always seemed to fight tooth and nail to the end, but could just never figure it out. I’ve mentioned it before, but the TV shot of him at the end of the 2021 Mich game always stuck out to me. It’s not the look of a man that didn’t care. To me it’s the look of a man who doesn’t know how to fix what he was hired to fix. 
 

- He should not have brought his entire UCF staff. Frost had all the momentum in the world and could have hired an elite staff. So many of his guys were getting P5 experience for the first time and were just not equipped to handle the B1G. Have any of them gone on to another P5 gig? Hell, how many have gone on to another FBS gig? think Chinander is at Boise St. 

- He should not have coached UCF in their Bowl Game. 2017 was the first year of the early recruiting signing period. While noble to do so, I think it would’ve been better had he focused on Neb solely. 
 

- It sounds like Bill Moos was not an attentive AD. A young head coach with scant experience taking on a massive rebuild and job, probably needed more hands on AD support. What that all entails… I’m not entirely sure. But Moos reportedly being at his ranch in Montana most of the time probably didn’t help things. 
 

- Scheduling. In his 5 seasons, Scott only got one home opener against a NonP5 opponent. Would’ve been helpful for him to get a shot early on to build some momentum and confidence in his team. 

- The rumors. I’ve heard salacious rumors about every Neb coach, except Riley. Maybe there’s some truth there… who knows. I just find it somewhat difficult to believe that Scott was roaming around LNK, living like Keith Richards, and there wasn’t a single photo or video snapped. All these alleged fights, girls and shenanigans in a small town, in an era where everyone has a camera in their pockets, and… nothing? Urban Meyer couldn’t even get away with a coed sitting on his lap in a restaurant he owned for Christ sake. 
 

He lost his dad while he was head coach and I can only imagine how that impacted him. We all grieve and cope differently. It’s difficult to see so many fans laugh off and mock any alleged substance abuse that may have happened. 
 

- It went on too long. He probably should’ve been shown the door after 2020. So few coaching tenures continue on after a 3 year stretch like that. Whether it was money or not, it really probably should’ve ended there. 

 

[Crusader Husker]

A lot of good thoughts given already.

He didn't have a lot of experience. 

Nebraska is a tough place to coach for someone who isn't ready.

He is probably a great OC and a average HC.

 

[Mavric]

- I don’t think Frost’s coaching experience really prepared him for the rebuild Neb required or the Neb job itself. I don’t think he really honed his craft anywhere. Did he really have to focus on details at Oregon? How hard is it really to be the WR or OC at Oregon? When you’ve got elite talent everywhere, do you really have to focus on details and make sure you do things right like… making sure your Center can reliably snap the ball, or making sure your OL doesn’t false start constantly? How many promising drives fizzled because a 3rd and 1 at midfield turned into a 3rd and 6 and then a punt? 

I think there is truth to this.  I've said for a long time that there are more offensive skill players to go around than there are defenders.  So the lower levels seem to generally skew towards offense.  I definitely think that helped at UCF.  And the Pac-10/12 isn't really known for defense.  So Oregon could kind of do the same thing.

- I never got the sense that he wasn’t trying, or didn’t care, like so many people have claimed. I got the sense that he simply didn’t know how to fix things. Not caring and not knowing aren’t the same thing. I never saw his teams give up in the fashion that Callahan, Bo or Riley teams did, and to me that’s indicative of him caring. His teams always seemed to fight tooth and nail to the end, but could just never figure it out. I’ve mentioned it before, but the TV shot of him at the end of the 2021 Mich game always stuck out to me. It’s not the look of a man that didn’t care. To me it’s the look of a man who doesn’t know how to fix what he was hired to fix. 

This.  People trying to claim this are just looking for anything to vilify him.

- Scheduling. In his 5 seasons, Scott only got one home opener against a NonP5 opponent. Would’ve been helpful for him to get a shot early on to build some momentum and confidence in his team. 

This definitely didn't help.  Most of our teams for the past 9 years would have helped to work out a few kinks and gain some confidence with an easier early-season schedule.

- The rumors. I’ve heard salacious rumors about every Neb coach, except Riley. Maybe there’s some truth there… who knows. I just find it somewhat difficult to believe that Scott was roaming around LNK, living like Keith Richards, and there wasn’t a single photo or video snapped. All these alleged fights, girls and shenanigans in a small town, in an era where everyone has a camera in their pockets, and… nothing? Urban Meyer couldn’t even get away with a coed sitting on his lap in a restaurant he owned for Christ sake.

I feel fairly confident that these are almost entirely made up.  I'm not going to say he was never at a bar late at night.  But it seems extremely likely that most of this is a bunch of crap.  But it makes for a fun story to tell.

 

[Lorewarn]

I feel fairly confident that these are almost entirely made up.  I'm not going to say he was never at a bar late at night.  But it seems extremely likely that most of this is a bunch of crap.  But it makes for a fun story to tell.

There's obviously plenty that has some amount of truth. If there wasn't, you wouldn't have our associate AD on a hot mic affirming him missing meetings, zoom calls, partying with a best buddy on a boat and swimming over to say something deserving of a whisper (we've heard what people think he said), etc. as well as Zatecha confirming being around for some reports of unprofessionalism, and Mike’l Severe strongly alluding to how much disarray there was to the point of assistant coaches going to the AD and asking for help.

 

[Mavric]

There's obviously plenty that has some amount of truth. If there wasn't, you wouldn't have our associate AD on a hot mic affirming him missing meetings, zoom calls, partying with a best buddy on a boat and swimming over to say something deserving of a whisper (we've heard what people think he said), etc. as well as Zatecha confirming being around for some reports of unprofessionalism, and Mike’l Severe strongly alluding to how much disarray there was to the point of assistant coaches going to the AD and asking for help.

I mean .... missing meetings isn't good.  But that's not really what all the fun rumors that are running all over the place are about.

 

[runningblind]

He wasn't cut out for the job is the bottom line.  That led to extra stress and other contributing factors, whatever they in truth were.  That 12-0 season convinced a lot of people he was a good HC, myself included for that first year and a half or so until I actually saw what he was doing for the team.  We were wrong, and we also waited too long to fire him because he was a former Husker.  We need to let that go and not make decisions based on that anymore. 

 

[teachercd]

I think a lot of the off-field stuff is either exaggerated or completely fabricated.  I have a couple of second-hand people who were around he and his wife enough to make me fairly certain that people just want to vilify him and believe whatever is fun to believe.

I think most of what happened was inheriting a crappy situation and then making enough of his own mistakes to not be able to overcome it.  I think our OL and WR recruiting were terrible for several years and the part where we kept missing at the same spots over and over again meant that we were always trying to dig out of a hole.  And we were a bit unlucky that we kept getting better players hurt (Martinez, Fidone, etc.) and ended up with too many of the recruiting hits being head cases (Robinson (or his handlers), Mills, McCaffrey, Washington, etc.).  By the time he got to the end things had gotten better but it wasn't showing up in the win column so it wasn't enough. 

His last couple of years were basically where Rhule was in year one: we were good enough to win more but found enough places to screw up that we kept losing close games.

Yep!

It was so much easier to believe the crazy rumors instead of just going "Yeah, he just kind of sucked at coaching"

My favorite was him and Davison literally tearing up the country club in Lincoln.  Doing donuts in the golf carts, ripping up the greens with their clubs, swearing at other golfers, getting totally s#!tfaced and the cops almost being called.

Sure that would happen with not one person taking a picture or video...of the most well known person in the state.  But the lapdogs ate it up and ran with it...just like he had to walk out on the field with his family before a game because of all the lame fans trying to ruin his life with those rumors of hidden rooms at Gate 25 where he was f#&%ing 19 year olds.

 

[Fru]

There's obviously plenty that has some amount of truth. If there wasn't, you wouldn't have our associate AD on a hot mic affirming him missing meetings, zoom calls, partying with a best buddy on a boat and swimming over to say something deserving of a whisper (we've heard what people think he said), etc. as well as Zatecha confirming being around for some reports of unprofessionalism, and Mike’l Severe strongly alluding to how much disarray there was to the point of assistant coaches going to the AD and asking for help.

Considering the way things were going, the missing/being late to meetings stuff is definitely believable and in my opinion, worthy of scrutiny as it is directly related to football. 
 

The stuff about Country Clubs, cart girls, Gate 25, his wife and kids, is what people talk about. I’ve heard the exact rumors about every coach except Riley. I think Neb fans are somewhat addicted to the drama of Nebraska football and want that type of stuff to exist. 

Mike’l was on the “Common Fan” pod recently and mentioned that if he could go back, he wouldn’t have said what he did. His comments seemed like he was trying to get one last dig in at Frost, and frankly they never made sense to me. 
 

Trev needs a salacious tell all book to explain why Frost was fired? What? Who was still arguing for Frost to be retained? It wasn’t about the losses? It was absolutely about the losses. 
 

Edit: Forgot to add, it’s a bit ironic for Zatecha to be criticizing someone else’s lack of professionalism, while he repeats rumors and innuendo on a hot mic. 

 

[BigRedBuster]

I actually think the biggest downfall was in game coaching.  There were way too many situations like the onside kick in Ireland that plagued his tenure.  The players aren't stupid and they see that.  It gets in their minds that the coach isn't going to be able to lead them into the 4th quarter setting them up to win.  Then, it becomes reality.

PS...this thread makes me feel like it's not less than 3 weeks till the start of the season.

 

[teachercd]

23 minutes ago, Fru said:

Considering the way things were going, the missing/being late to meetings stuff is definitely believable and in my opinion, worthy of scrutiny as it is directly related to football. 
 

The stuff about Country Clubs, cart girls, Gate 25, his wife and kids, is what people talk about. I’ve heard the exact rumors about every coach except Riley. I think Neb fans are somewhat addicted to the drama of Nebraska football and want that type of stuff to exist. 

Mike’l was on the “Common Fan” pod recently and mentioned that if he could go back, he wouldn’t have said what he did. His comments seemed like he was trying to get one last dig in at Frost, and frankly they never made sense to me. 
 

Even the "late" or "missing" practice thing is so blown out of proportion.  If anyone is going to be late or miss it will be the HC.  s#!t, Bobby Bowden used to go nap during practice! 

Out of all of it though, that is probably the only thing that is believable.