Nebraska football: Scott Frost UCF buyout is a higher hurdle than most
Nebraska football is entering a new era of spending if it hires Scott Frost away from UCF.
No, Scott Frost isn’t a member of the Nebraska football program just yet. The rumor mill has long ago decided that’s just a formality.
When the UCF coach announces he’s leaving his current team and heading to the Huskers, he’s likely going to be getting a pretty penny to do it. Turns out UCF isn’t going to be left entirely empty-handed
As the Omaha World-Herald reports, the school will be owed $3 million dollars if he departs. While that money is technically owed by the departing coach, the program he is departing to is usually the one that pays it.
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That means that if the numbers we’ve heard, that Frost is going to get paid around $42 million for seven years, the Huskers are actually going to be on the hook for $45 million for their new coach alone.
That number doesn’t take the money they will have to pay Mike Riley for his buyout into account. The school will pay the recently fired coach more than $6 million over the next four years.
Frost’s buyout might be microscopic to the $9 million Iowa State set the buyout for its head coach Matt Campbell but UCF’s is higher than most other teams in the AAC. Contemporaries like Justin Fuentes and Mike Norvell at Memphis both have or had just a $500K buyout,
When Oregon hired Willie Taggart away from South Florida, the Bulls were owed just $1.7 million. If Charlie Strong, Taggart’s replacement at the school is hired away, USF would receive $2.5 million this year. That buyout decreases by $300K every year.
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When Texas hired Tom Herman away from Houston, they had to pay $2.5 million. The larger than normal price tag place on Scott Frost seems to be an indication UCF knew someone like the Nebraska football team would come calling. The Knights wanted to try and keep their young coach, or make it painful to take him away.