With Saturday’s loss to Ohio State, Nebraska is now guaranteed a fifth straight losing season. The once-proud program had experienced just five total losing seasons in the 57 years prior. On Monday, Trev Alberts announced that Scott Frost would be returning for a fifth season. In turn, the Husker coach agreed to restructure his contract. Frost’s annual salary next year will go from $5 million to $4 million, with the buyout number dropping from $15 million to $7.5 million. He is giving up $8.5 million in guaranteed money to bet on himself being capable of turning around the program.
Roughly two hours after it was revealed Frost would be returning in 2022, the head coach announced that effective immediately, he was firing four of his five offensive assistants; offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach Matt Lubick, offensive line coach and running game coordinator Greg Austin, quarterbacks coach Mario Verduzco, and running backs coach and recruiting coordinator Ryan Held.
This is the first time Nebraska has fired assistant coaches during the season. That’s the landscape of college football now, though. The accelerated recruiting calendar with the early signing day and the emergence of the NCAA transfer portal necessitated swift action. Early signing day is December 15, so Frost will need to have his staff in place and ready to hit the ground running when they go out to recruit on November 28. The new offensive coaches will also need to have a unified approach and gameplan in place for scouring the transfer portal in December and January. Expect them to hit that thing very hard.
Alberts and Frost have had daily, if not weekly, discussions about the direction of the program, the issues it’s facing and how to best address them moving forward. Alberts highlighted things such as attention to detail and organizational skills as areas in particular that need to improve. Revamping the offensive staff was Frost’s pitch to Alberts. Frankly, he needed to make these moves after last season. Moving forward, however, does this mean Frost plans to take more of a CEO approach as head coach, concentrating on big-picture items with the team? Frost has called the plays and been the de facto offensive coordinator for all six seasons as a head coach, dating back to his UCF days. Can he be hands off and allow someone else to run the show unabated?
When you look at the Husker program, along with special teams, it’s the offense that has held them back from turning the corner. If Frost had made incremental progress the way Chinander has with the defense, Nebraska would be winning 7 or 8 games a year by now and the perception of the program would be completely different. Which begs the question, in four years, why hasn’t Frost been able to tweak and mold his system into something that is a good fit in the Big Ten?
It’ll be interesting to see how Frost fills out his four openings. Can he attract proven, quality assistants to join him in Lincoln, knowing the pressure will be dialed up to a ’10’ to succeed in 2022? What kind of coach is going to be willing to move his family to Lincoln when there’s a real possibility he could be one-and-done?
I’d be shocked if one of those spots doesn’t go to a dedicated special teams coordinator. We’ve heard Frost say for four years now that better special teams play would have resulted in another win or two. A couple names to keep in mind here are Bill Busch and Sean Snyder. Busch joined the staff as a defensive analyst this past offseason and has a background coaching special teams. He’s an ace recruiter who could help the team attract players at multiple positions. Snyder is a guy Frost went after as an analyst in 2020. He was set to accept the role before Clay Helton offered him a full-time position as special teams coordinator at USC. Snyder doesn’t have near the recruiting prowess as Busch, but he’s recognized as one of the best in the business. Does Frost double back here?
Does Ron Brown join the staff in some capacity? He’s currently a senior offensive analyst, but in his 24 years as an assistant under Tom Osborne, Frank Solich and Bo Pelini, Brown has coached tight ends, wide receivers and running backs. Sean Beckton, the only offensive assistant retained, currently coaches the tight ends, but he has a long history coaching receivers. Beckton and Brown could offer some positional versatility to plug holes on the staff where it’s needed. Depending on how the staff is put together, maybe Beckton coaches both the tight ends and receivers.
Which brings us to what kind of offensive coordinator Frost targets. Is he going to hire a guy that he is familiar with and shares a similar philosophy? Will he be given the financial means to target a high-profile guy? Would he target someone with an offensive system that is diametrically opposed to his, even if it’s a better fit for the Big Ten? Does he allow his hire to choose the other two assistants that will join his staff?
Do the new coaches need to have Husker ties? For better or worse, nothing gets fans’ juices flowing more than a Husker coming home. Bill Busch and Ron Brown scratch that itch. Does Frost target a guy like Jake Peetz? The 38-year-old first-year offensive coordinator at LSU played for Bill Callahan and has put together a nice résumé. He’s had two stints at Alabama and spent time in the NFL coaching with Carolina, Oakland, Washington and Jacksonville. He also spent 2008-11 as a scout for the Jaguars, so he has an eye for talent. What about his colleague with the Tigers, wide receivers coach Mickey Joseph, who is one of the better recruiters in the SEC? Does Frost look at him again after kicking the tires in 2020?
There’s no doubt this is going to be a very interesting last month of the season. One of the factors that went into Alberts keeping Frost was the fact the team had not quit on the coaching staff. With almost half of them now gone, does this change? After the season, do we see a mass exodus of offensive players hitting the transfer portal? The offensive line and running back rooms will definitely experience attrition.
What about some of the defensive coaches? Do they look for greener pastures while they can? Defensive backs coach Travis Fisher has been a hot commodity since he made the move with Frost to Nebraska. He turned down an offer to join Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss two years ago and he interviewed for a spot on the staff at Georgia last offseason. It might be hard to keep him. Loyalty might keep Chinander and Ruud at Nebraska, but would Tony Tuioti leave for a prominent Pac-12 gig? Would Mike Dawson leave if a school on the east coast had an opening? That bears watching.
Alberts is taking a chance here. Retaining Frost feels like a compromise for a fanbase that has been split on its opinions of Frost after four disappointing seasons. I already wrote about the recruiting implications of keeping Frost another year if he falls on his face again in 2022. I’ll reiterate; Nebraska’s 2022 recruiting class is its worst in modern history. That’s already inevitable. But it’ll be a small class, which helps. The thing that gets dicey is how can you expect Frost to recruit a class of difference-makers in 2023 when he will be coming off four straight losing seasons and his seat already smoldering? That class is expected to number at least 20.
It’s a class he’ll need to put together largely before the season even starts. Recruiting classes are basically full by the time September rolls around. Who is going to commit to a coach they know has a coin flip’s chance of being retained after the season? If Frost fails again and a change is made a year from now, any class he assembles will fall apart and you’re condemning the program to back-to-back terrible recruiting classes. That will make your next rebuild under a new staff that much more difficult.
I think Alberts is making a mistake keeping Frost and should have made a move. Alberts has admitted Frost’s former player status played a major factor in keeping his job. It feels like Alberts is giving Frost one more year because it will turn the tide of opinion one way or the other for fans, and more importantly, big-money boosters. I think the Tradition Coalition won out this time, but Frost had better show results next year or that’s that.
History tells us it’s not going to end well. To his credit, Alberts knows this as well. “There’s not a lot of empirical data out there to suggest this will work, let’s be honest. But I also think, if there’s a decision point – whether it’s football or anything else, you know, Scott’s a brother, he’s a Husker, and he’s a Nebraskan.”
As for that “empirical data” Alberts is ignoring because Frost won a championship as a player almost 25 years ago, it’s pretty overwhelming. Since 1971, there have been 705 coaches who were at the same school 4+ years. One hundred five (15%) got a fifth season after having zero winning seasons, zero bowl appearances and less than .390 win percentage. Of those 105 coaches, only 14 (13%) ever had a winning season at that school. Of those 14, only two went on to have a career record over .500 at that school. Only four ever finished a season at that school ranked in the top 25. None of those coaches ever went on to finish in the top 10.
In those 50 years, not once did a top-20 program like Nebraska give a coach a fifth year after four straight losing seasons. Not once. In fact, you’ll only find two examples of a coach at a top-20 program getting a fourth season after three straight losing seasons; In 2008, Washington fired Tyrone Willingham after he went 0-12 in his fourth year after going 2-9, 5-7 and 4-9 the previous three seasons. In 1994, LSU fired Curley Hallman after he went 4-7 in his fourth year after going 5-6, 2-9 and 5-6 the previous three seasons. What Alberts is doing is unprecedented.
What about Frost’s current contemporaries? Well, there are 55 FBS coaches who have coached as many games as Scott Frost at their current schools. Thirty-two of those coaches are also at Power Five schools. Among his peers, Frost ranks in the bottom 3 in overall winning percentage, winning percentage against conference opponents, winning percentage against teams with a winning record, winning percentage against teams with a winning conference record, winning percentage against Power Five teams and winning percentage against Top 25 teams.
Let’s go a step further and compare not just the current coaches, but the programs. There are 65 Power Five teams. Since Frost took over at Nebraska in 2018, only six (9%) have a worse overall record: Kansas, Rutgers, Vanderbilt, Arizona, Arkansas and Oregon State. That’s the sort of company Alberts is okay with Nebraska being part of, apparently. Oregon State is the only one of those six that hasn’t changed coaches in that span. Give the other five credit for not getting apathetic.
Of Frost’s 15 wins, five came against teams from the FCS (2018 Bethune-Cookman, 2021 Fordham), Sun Belt (2019 South Alabama) and MAC (2019 Northern Illinois, 2021 Buffalo). Of his 10 wins against Power Five opponents, only two of those teams (Minnesota, Michigan State) finished with a winning record. Both were 7-6 in 2018. Northwestern, which Nebraska beat October 2, is currently 3-6. The other seven were a combined 25-48 (.342 win percentage). Even if you include the three Group of Five teams, the total records for the 13 FBS teams Frost beat is 53-88 (.376).
Frost has lost to seven opponents that finished a season (or currently sit) under .500. Frost is 2-20 against teams with a winning record. Every other Big Ten West team has beaten at least two ranked teams since 2018. Frost is currently 0-12, losing by an average margin of 15.8 points.
Frost has a 10-23 (.303%) conference record (dead last) and is 6-15 (.286%) against teams in the West Division, which is tied with Illinois for dead last. In fact, Frost doesn’t have a winning record against a single team in the Big Ten West. Keep in mind those records are likely to get worse with two games against top 25 teams left on the schedule. Nebraska is the only team in the West that will have finished in the bottom 3 of the division each of the past four years. Frost has won back-to-back games just four times (has never had a three-game winning streak), and has won back-to-back league games only once.
It will truly take a miracle for things to work out for Frost at Nebraska. I don’t think it will happen. Keeping Frost is akin to kicking the can down the road and dealing with the issue later. Well, 12 months from now that bill will come due for Alberts. All Husker fans can do is hope that strong candidates like Billy Napier and Dave Aranda don’t take bigger jobs this offseason so that the Huskers can take a swing at them next November.
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