ORLANDO — Parts of Central Florida began the week under a frost advisory as temperatures dipped into the 40s. A section of UCF‘s football fans hoped perhaps it was an omen that the ongoing coaching search would end with the return of a beloved figure, Scott Frost.
Frost is one of the more polarizing candidates linked with the UCF vacancy, created this past Saturday when Gus Malzahn resigned after four seasons to take over as Florida State’s offensive coordinator. The 49-year-old oversaw the Knights‘ undefeated, national-championship 2017 campaign, one capped off with a victory over Malzahn’s Auburn Tigers in the Peach Bowl on New Year’s Day.
However, reports leaked weeks earlier — near the conclusion of UCF’s American Athletic Conference championship game victory over Memphis on Dec. 2 — that Frost would leave to accept the same position at Nebraska, his alma mater. He coached the Peach Bowl before making the permanent move to Lincoln.
UCF Knights football coaching search:Is Liberty’s Jamey Chadwell the best fit?
Nebraska fired Frost in the opening month of his fifth season, with a 16-31 record and zero bowl game appearances. He is currently serving as a senior football analyst for the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams.
Rivals reported early Thursday morning that Frost has interviewed for the job, and Mark Pszonak of Mike Farrell Sports added, through an anonymous source, that athletic director Terry Mohajir “reached out and had conversations with him.”
Today, continuing The News-Journal’s series examining potential UCF coaching candidates, it’s time to address the elephant in the room and assess whether a Frost reunion is the right course of action.
For starters, Frost is one of the most influential figures in UCF’s football history.
Hired on Dec. 1, 2015 after a successful three-year stint as Oregon’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, a period during which Marcus Mariota blossomed into a Heisman Trophy winner, Frost hit the ground running and quickly recruited a handful of core pieces that transformed UCF into a blindingly fast, ruthlessly efficient juggernaut — highlighted by quarterback McKenzie Milton, running back Adrian Killins Jr. and wide receiver Dredrick Snelson.
Frost’s debut class included a pair of two-star defensive prospects, per 247Sports, that later became second-round NFL draft picks: defensive tackle Trysten Hill and safety Richie Grant.
A plodding, pro-style team under predecessor George O’Leary, UCF morphed into an uptempo, spread offense with Frost at the command. The Knights went 6-7 in his debut campaign, including a Cure Bowl loss to Arkansas State, but exploded the following year and led the nation in scoring (48.2 points per game).
His reappointment would be popular not only with fans longing to relive the relatively recent glory days, but with former players as well.
Shaquem Griffin, who registered 34 tackles for loss and 18½ sacks in 2017-18, has posted #BringTheFrost several times onto his X account this month. Former UCF defensive back Rashard Causey called Frost “the answer,” to which former tight end Michael Colubiale responded with a campaign-style endorsement for “Frost-Milton 2024.”
Money could also be a factor that makes Frost an attractive option. UCF would not have to fork out a buyout payment, as it would if it were to pursue sitting head coaches like Liberty’s Jamey Chadwell, Tulane’s Jon Sumrall and Texas State’s GJ Kinne, for instance.
At Nebraska, Frost’s salary hovered right around $5 million per year, a figure that would be outside the top-five annual incomes among Big 12 coaches. Malzahn had a guaranteed $4 million salary this past season, though he was set to make $5 million in 2025 and $5.5 million for ’26 and ’27, according to a term sheet the university’s athletics association provided to USA TODAY.
Lastly, Frost — as he told CBS Sports back in April — is “dying to get back in” and still passionate about UCF.
“In 10 years, UCF could be a [national] power,” Frost said. “It’s the best college town in Florida by far. Orlando? The campus is beautiful.”
As is often the case in movies, hardly do college football coaching sequels live up to the hype of the original.
The Tampa Bay Times highlighted several such instances in a piece earlier this week. Mack Brown’s return to North Carolina ended last month after a 44-33 record and a relatively unceremonious dismissal. Greg Schiano has stabilized Rutgers as a bowl-eligible Big Ten program but not reached the heights of a 43-21 stretch from 2005-09. The late John Robinson won three Rose Bowls at USC between 1976-79, but his second act (1993-97) yielded just one Rose Bowl victory and a high mark of nine wins.
Part of what made Frost’s tenure so special was how cutting-edge it was at the time. It entirely changed UCF’s identity for the better, not only from a play-style standpoint but from creative expression — uniform combinations, nameplates on the back of jerseys, etc. Would nostalgia, in this case, prevent or negate progress?
Frost has been out of the college game for two years, which might not sound like a long time but has coincided with major changes to the sport — from the elimination of the one-time transfer rule, to athlete compensation coming directly from schools via the pending House settlement, and the widening gap between the SEC and Big Ten from the sport’s other eight FBS conferences, as demonstrated by the distribution of at-large bids for the expanded College Football Playoff.
Nebraska’s offense averaged 30 points, 456.2 total yards and 72.3 plays per game during Frost’s debut 2018 season on the sidelines. The Cornhuskers never hit those heights again, though the unit rebounded in his final full year (27.9 points, 447.6 yards, 69.3 plays per game).
Frost’s main issue, however, was a disastrous 5-22 record in one-score games. His last 13 defeats as Cornhuskers coach came by single digits.
“The thing that was a little puzzling was that if you looked at the score at the end of three quarters, Scott would have had a really good record,” former Nebraska coach/athletic director Tom Osborne said in August 2023. “For whatever reason, they couldn’t hang in the fourth quarter and lost a lot of games. As you know, this is a business of what have you done for me lately.”
UCF won its 13 games in 2017 by a staggering average margin of 22.9 points, though the Knights prevailed in three straight one-score contests — against South Florida, Memphis and Auburn — to close that season.
Still, it is unrealistic to expect UCF will rock up every Saturday and blow out opponents in the Big 12, a conference with as much parity and chaos as any in the country. And Frost’s recent track record might be more indicative of his game-management abilities than his last tenure in the Bounce House.
If Frost does return, would he try to get the whole band back together?
Defensive coordinator Erik Chinander lasted a week longer at Nebraska than Frost, and he is currently in charge of a Boise State unit (23.1 ppg, 364.8 ypg allowed) storming toward the College Football Playoff. Offensive coordinator/wide receivers coach Troy Walters has helped develop Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins into two of the NFL’s premier playmakers with the Cincinnati Bengals.
As for Frost’s position coaches at UCF:
It seems more reasonable to think there might be some sort of hybrid between Frost’s trusted allies, current staff members to appease recruits and roster holdovers and, perhaps, some new outside voices. Milton would be an exciting candidate as QBs coach if deemed ready to make the leap. He’s with Josh Heupel as an offensive analyst at Tennessee.
