For the third time since the end of the 2014 season, Nebraska will be looking to hire a new football coach. It will be the Huskers’ fourth head coach since moving to the Big Ten Conference for the 2011 season.
The fact is, nobody thought the program would be in this position back in December of 2017. Everyone, including myself, thought Bill Moos hit a gigantic home run with the hiring of Scott Frost. National media pundits Todd McShay, Kirk Herbstreit, Tim Brando, Joel Klatt, Chris Fowler and numerous others sang his praises. There were comparisons to Nick Saban and Urban Meyer from those guys. National championships were predicted.
It seemed like the perfect marriage at the time, didn’t it? Scott Frost wasn’t just a “Nebraska guy” the school went out and hired to replace Mike Riley. He was the hottest coaching commodity in the country during that hiring cycle. He was the recipient of six national coach of the year awards following the 2017 season which was the culmination of the biggest two-year turnaround in the history of college football. Frost could have taken the jobs at Florida, Florida State or Tennessee. Instead he answered the call to come home. It seemed in every conceivable way that Frost checked all the boxes.
Unfortunately, Frost failed to deliver anything close to what was expected when he made his celebrated return to his alma mater. My feelings about Frost have been well known since I lost faith in him during the 2020 COVID season. I said my piece during the middle of last season. But there is one source that I thought truly encapsulated Frost’s program.
Every year in Athlon Sports’ college football preview magazine, there is a section where several anonymous coaches sound off on their fellow Big Ten counterparts. It provides an unfiltered, unbiased perspective from guys who know the game – and these teams – more than anyone.
Tell me if this quote is accurate; “In their division, Nebraska still has the best-looking roster. We call it the all-bus team because they look better than anyone else in the West in pregame. Long, tall dudes, really athletic, and then after a quarter or so, you stop worrying because they’re usually hurting themselves. They struggle with turnovers, they struggle with technique. I think it’s a culture issue.”
That opinion is applicable for every season Frost was coach.
Roster talent was never the issue. Development and culture have always been at the root of the problem. According to the 247 Sports “College Football Team Talent Composite,” Nebraska has the 24th most talented roster in college football. They’ve been ranked 26th (2018), 24th (2019), 24th (2020) and 23rd (2021) during Frost’s tenure. Not an exact science, certainly, but it’s a pretty good metric to go by.
Either way, I don’t think there’s much of a debate Frost had better talent than his 16-31 record would indicate. In Year 5, there was no more runway. No more mulligans. No more excuses.
The fact is, under Frost’s direction, the program is in the middle of its worst five-year stretch since 1957-1961. This once-proud program is sadly a shell of what it used to be. The Huskers haven’t won a conference title since 1999 and haven’t gone to a bowl since 2016. Want to put that more into perspective? In the past five seasons, 64 of 66 Power Five programs have made a bowl game. The two teams that haven’t: Nebraska and Kansas.
In this century, Nebraska has had the following rankings in the final AP polls: 8 (2000), 8 (2001), 19 (2003), 24 (2005), 14 (2009), 20 (2010), 24 (2011) and 25 (2012). They’ve been nationally irrelevant for almost two decades.
This is still Nebraska, so it’s not like the program is at risk of losing support. But an apathetic and complacent approach from fans toward the team is dangerous and was beginning to set in.
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After an embarrassing loss at home to Georgia Southern dropped the Huskers to 1-2, the situation in Lincoln became untenable. Athletic director Trev Alberts had seen enough. He decided things had gotten so bad that he cut ties with Frost three weeks before his buyout was set to drop from $15 million to $7.5 million on Oct. 1.
Alberts told reporters that he made the change now to be fair to the players and others around the program. “We owed it to the players to give them a different voice, perhaps a slightly different vision.” Alberts said. “Give them some confidence, an opportunity. I know how disruptive these changes are, but we needed to inject something into this team to give them the confidence and hopefully help them compete.”
Moving on from Frost now allows Alberts to be patient and thorough in his search for the next coach. It lets him identify his preferred candidates and gives him the time to gauge their interest and vet them. I expect Alberts to hire a replacement in time to hit the ground running by early December. The new coach will need to start putting together his staff, prepare for the early signing period (Dec. 21), have an eye on the transfer portal and begin to evaluate the roster he’s inheriting.
Alberts had preliminary discussions through third parties with prospective replacements last season, so there’s some legwork that’s already been done. There are a couple guys that have been on his radar who still have interest in the Nebraska job – I can assure you of that.
Moving forward from this point, Alberts will have a search firm involved in the process and more candidates will be identified. Alberts also said he will personally reach out to several current and former coaches around the country to get input. “I have a lot of great mentors and friends that I’ll be working with,” Alberts said. “And ultimately, in a prior life, I had relationships with a lot of coaches in this business and I intend to reach out to a lot of people.”
Despite what some dejected fans and misinformed national media might say, Nebraska is still a really attractive job. It’s one of the top 20 jobs in the country. Nebraska is a historic program that has won or shared five national titles, produced three Heisman Trophy winners and is among just nine schools with at least 900 wins. They’re down now, but the program can get back. The ambition and resources are there. It’s inevitable; they just need the right guy leading them.
This program has a lot to sell. I personally view Nebraska as a sleeping giant. The Huskers have everything a coach needs to be (very) successful. They’re members of one of the two (future) super-conferences. The landscape is evolving and Nebraska is on the right side of the shift. More than ever, Big Ten and SEC jobs are separating themselves from the rest of college football. Coaches in the Big 12, Pac 12 and ACC can see the writing on the wall.
Nebraska is one of the select schools about to lap everyone else in the country thanks to its new television deal. Resources won’t be an issue. The new coach will have a huge budget to assemble a staff and build a top-notch recruiting department.
Nebraska’s new state-of-the-art football facility will open next summer and the new coach will be able to sell that on the recruiting trail.
The Cornhuskers have the most passionate and loyal fan base in college football. The program has tremendous NIL potential that can still be elevated and improved upon. Its potential, especially when the team starts winning, can be utilized on the recruiting trail and through the transfer portal.
Finally, no offense to Wisconsin, Minnesota or Iowa, but the Big Ten West isn’t exactly the SEC West. There’s a relatively easy path to the conference championship if you get things rolling. Heck, Northwestern has won the division twice since Frost has been in Lincoln.
There will be some really good coaches who want this job. They wanted it last November. Trev Alberts will have options.
The task will be finding the right man and the right fit. “We’re also not going to try to win the press conference,” Alberts said at his press conference. “At the end of the day we need to hire the right leader and the right fit.” That’s important to keep in mind. There will be coaches interested that would win a press conference but might not be cultural fits. The guy who gets the job might not get you excited, at least initially, but as long as he wins, that’s all that matters.
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