Nebraska Football: Former assistants comments crystallize why Scott Frost was always going to fail
As the Nebraska football team hopes to turn the page to the Matt Rhule era, it’s possible that looking back to the coaching staff that preceded it and why it didn’t work can help fans recognize what is and isn’t working a little faster this time around. While there have been plenty of guesses and intonations as to what went wrong with the Frost regime, some members of that staff are now making it clear that the “Golden Boy” was doomed to fail from day one in Lincoln.
The Nebraska football team is going with a new head coach for the third time in 10 seasons. Why some new head coaches fail and why some succeed is undoubtedly something that Husker fans should be more than a little interested in.
In a new article by The Athletic a couple of former Nebraska football assistant coaches know why Scott Frost and his bunch failed in Lincoln and it was quite clear that things were never going to work after they came over from UCF.
Two former assistants who were with Frost both at Central Florida and the Nebraska football team think they know why things went wrong. The two men, who refused to be identified, underlined some of the accusations that surfaced just days after Frost was fired.
The big issue? Frost’s approach at UCF worked because his lack of attention to detail and loosey-goosey style followed George O’Leary’s more militant attitude. Unfortunately, with the Nebraska football team, Frost was following Mike Riley, who was a player’s coach and had already tried the laid-back method.
The other assistant also made it clear that he felt UCF players were a bit more willing to learn and responded to what the coaching staff was saying and doing than the Cornhuskers’ players did.
"“At UCF, they just wanted people to love them up and make football fun again. Those kids wanted to be great. They just wanted to be loved and understood. We were a young staff. We’d play noon basketball. Frost would be playing too, and the players were jumping into it with us. Practices were short and fun. We coached off emotion. At Nebraska, I think they’d been chasing (recruiting) stars … and we (ended up) letting more things go.”"
“Letting more things go” was something that came to light late in the Scott Frost era. Talk about a lack of attention to detail became more prominent after the former Nebraska football quarterback’s fourth season.
Those comments also make it clear that the assistants who were either fired the year before or right along with Frost still don’t understand how much of a role they played in Nebraska football’s failures. It also shows that a lack of desire to make the program better meant there was no chance things were going to go right.