Nebraska football: Scott Frost is done and he knows it
The head coach tried to dodge blame with his comments following an embarrassing loss to Northwestern.
I’ll admit that I was very high on Nebraska this season, impacting my writing on this blog.
When I bet on Nebraska to win the Big Ten West and talked about them upsetting Oklahoma, I didn’t count on Scott Frost’s ego getting in the way.
It’s also possible I overestimated new offensive coordinator Mark Whipple’s impact minus Kenny Pickett and Jordan Addison.
I bought into the hype hook, line, and sinker. I bet them to win the Big Ten West and hyped up an upset against Oklahoma.
I may have considered a Heisman bet when Casey Thompson led the offense to a TD on the first drive. Thankfully, my brother talked me out of it.
None of this changes the fact that Scott Frost is a criminal who should be thrown in jail and/or fired.
Scott Frost was hired as the head football coach at Nebraska in December 2017, fresh off leading UCF to a perfect 13–0 record and a top 10 finish. The Knights were the №1 scoring offense in the nation averaging 48.1 points per game.
You could say there was hype about Frost returning to coach his alma mater. The governor of Nebraska proclaimed September 1st Scott Frost Day. That’s not a joke. That really happened.
Frost opened his tenure with six straight losses — the worst start to a season in school history. That level of disappointment has been the theme of Frost’s tenure at his alma mater.
His offense that thrived in the American Athletic Conference with UCF struggled to succeed in the Big Ten with Nebraska.
Frost called the offensive plays during the first four seasons of his tenure with the Huskers. His offenses ranked 58th, 72nd, 102nd, and 71st in the nation in points per game.
The most infamous of problems under Frost has been the turnovers.
During Frost’s four seasons holding a clipboard, the Huskers’ offense ranked 101st, 96th, 124th, and 81st (yay!) in the nation in turnover rate (the percentage of offensive drives that ended in an interception or fumble).
Last season was the final straw for Frost’s bosses. Nebraska went 3–9 overall and 1–8 in Big Ten play — losing all nine games by single digits — a Big Ten record.
Frost’s record as head coach fell to 15–29 overall and 10–25 in the Big Ten. It was time for a change.
If Nebraska wasn’t going to fire their former favorite son, they at least needed to take his toy clipboard away.
Frost begrudgingly handed over playcalling duties to veteran assistant Mark Whipple. There was hope for new OC/play-caller Whipple, who led the Pitt Panthers with Heisman Trophy finalist Kenny Pickett at quarterback.
Saturday was the first time Frost had been on the sidelines for a game since 2012 that he wasn’t calling the plays — he was the offensive coordinator at Oregon before he became the head coach at UCF.
Even if it wasn’t by choice, this massive change — along with the addition of Casey Thompson at quarterback — was supposed to represent the beginning of a new era at Nebraska.
Sorry, did I say the beginning of a new era? I meant the beginning of the end of an era.
New offense. New play-caller. New quarterback. Same old Nebraska.
Nebraska were heavy favorites and had a massive home-field advantage but still suffered another disappointing loss. The always disciplined Northwestern Wildcats beat the Huskers, 31–28.
Frost’s team turned the ball over three times (including 2 key picks from Thompson) and gave up 528 yards to Northwestern. I don’t think I need to go into stats. They gave up 500+ yards to NORTHWESTERN! That’s bad.
The Huskers blew two different 11-point leads in their second consecutive Week 0 loss. Frost’s record at Nebraska fell to 15–30.
The game will always be known for Frost’s decision to onside kick after his team took a 28–17 lead late in the third quicklyr. Northwestern easily recovered and went in for a TD. Nebraska didn’t score again.
To his credit, Frost took the blame for the onside kick, “I made the call so that’s on me.”
Frost explained his reasoning for going for it: “At that point in the game, I thought all the momentum was on our side. I thought if we got it, we could end the game.”
If they recovered it and scored we’d all be talking about how smart Scott Frost was right now. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Frost wanted to be the smartest guy in the room. He flew too close to the sun and it burned him.
Frost continued: “You can’t really foresee them scoring 14 straight and us sputtering after we played well to start the second half on offense. Again those are excuses. If I had (to do) it over, I wouldn’t make the call.”
After the last four years, you really should’ve been able to foresee a team coming back and beating you Scott.
Thompson had a good game, throwing for 355 yards, throwing for a TD, and rushing for another. But the team wasn’t the same after the onside kick.
Nebraska’s fourth quarter drives went: INT, punt, punt, INT. They gained 74 yards in the final period. Brutal.
Nebraska achieved yet another dubious honor — becoming the first team in the history of major college football to lose seven straight games by single digits.
Frost now holds an almost impossibly bad record of 5–21 at Nebraska in games decided by one score. An equally atrocious feat, Frost’s Nebraska teams are 3–25 when trailing at halftime.
While Frost accepted blame for the onside kick gaffe, he threw his offensive staff under the bus, saying: “I think we’re going to have to learn as an offensive staff that you’ve got to be a little creative in this league.”
Frost went on to say that his new hand-off role in the offense is tough for him and he thinks he could cooperate more. Interesting.
The defense gave up 31 points and 528 yards to Northwestern but Scott’s takeaway is that the offense needs to get more creative.
In fairness, we probably should’ve seen this coming.
Powerful people don’t like giving up control. They typically get to where they are because having that control is something that fuels them to get there.
The ultimate authority given to college football coaches in America rivals that of any other human being on earth.
In other words: These dudes got fragile egos. It doesn’t matter if it’s Nick Saban losing out to Texas A&M in recruiting or Scott Frost losing his play-calling duties.
At Big Ten media day, Frost said it “made him a little sad” to give up play-calling duties but that he’d “remain involved a lot.”
Despite someone else holding the clipboard, it would be clear that Frost would also influence the offense. No shit.
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As always, thanks for reading my nonsense!
