Scott Frost is here: What we learned and what we still don’t know

By Tommy Rezac

Scott Frost and Bill Moos answered questions for 35 minutes during Sunday’s press conference at Memorial Stadium. Then, they answered some more in follow-up availability after that.

Here’s what we learned from the day, and what we might find out later.

Before the Presser

More than 100 Nebraska Football lettermen greeted Frost in the weight room before the press conference.

The Husker family.@coach_frost was greeted by former Husker players before he was introduced to media today.

✊🌽🔴 #GBR pic.twitter.com/GiGewSScc1

— ❄️❄️ Nebraska Football ❄️❄️ (@HuskerFBNation) December 3, 2017

“Scott didn’t know that the football lettermen were going to be in there,” Moos said. “That choked me up…I’ll remember that for a long time.”

“My first thought when I walked in is this is unbelievable,” Frost said. “My second thought was that most of these guys had been eating too much.”

Matt Davison

Former Husker wide receiver and current Husker Sports Network analyst Matt Davison was named Associate Athletic Director for Football on Sunday. His future with the Network has yet to be determined.

Moos said Davison was one of the most influential people he consulted during the hiring process.

“I felt like this was the right time, the right situation for him to get into,” Davison said. “I let him know that. I think this is the right time. I think this is the right situation.”

Davison organized a meeting at an Embassy Suites near a Philadelphia airport on the weekend of Nov. 18 when UCF was at Temple and Nebraska was playing at Penn State.

“Matt did all of that work for me,” Moos said. “I learned real fast that Matt had Scott’s trust, and I got that from Coach (Tom Osborne). He just talked about their friendship, ‘If you really want to know about Scott and what he’s all about, his great dear friend is Matt Davison.’”

Moos confirmed that he and his wife, along with Davison and Frost, were all at the meeting in Philly.

“It was casual, there were no notes,” Moos said. “I wanted to get to know this guy and I thought that maybe he wanted to get to know me too. It wasn’t long, maybe an hour or so.”

Moos had initial conversations with Osborne and Davison as early as week two on the job.

“Matt’s role was pestering me until I got here,” Frost said.

Was Frost the only guy?

Moos confirmed in the press conference that Frost was the only candidate extended an offer. He said he had “people that talked to other agents and other coaches,” and he had conversations with a couple of them, but there was never much doubt Moos had already found his guy.

“There were others that really, really wanted Scott, and some prestigious programs, and there were some prestigious coaches that really, really wanted Nebraska,” Moos said, “But this is a fit, and we talk about fit here and it has substance. You got to fit at Nebraska, and I don’t know any better fit than this gentleman on my left.”

Assistant Coaches

Frost has yet to specify which member of his UCF staff will join him in Lincoln, and if any assistants from Mike Riley’s staff will be retained.

“The staff I hired at UCF is a group of men that are unbelievable coaches that have unbelievable character,” Frost said. “I expect the majority of them to come.”

In conversations with Frost’s agent during the season, Moos said Frost wanted to make sure his ten assistant coaches were taken care of with a pool of five million dollars.

“That’s a big pool,” Moos said. “That ranks top two or three in the Big Ten.”

Sources said Sunday night that former Husker linebacker Barrett Ruud, who was quality control administrator at UCF, will be linebackers coach under Frost.

You can read more on Frosts’ staff here.

Bowl Game

UCF will play Auburn in the Peach Bowl on Jan. 1 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, GA. Kickoff for that game is set for 11:30 a.m. central time and can be viewed on ESPN.

UCF athletic director Danny White said Saturday in a press conference that Frost will come back to coach the bowl game, while offensive coordinator Troy Walters was named interim head coach in charge of day-to-day operations.

Specific details have yet to be ironed out, but it sounds like Frost will be on UCF’s sideline for that game.

“We’re looking forward to recruiting for the next couple weeks until the dead period,” Frost said. “I don’t want to leave the players down there without a coach. They deserve to have the best chance they possibly can, especially in the bowl game they qualified for. So it all works out, I’ve got to go back and help those kids one more time.”

Meeting with the Team

Frost had a meeting with the current members of the Husker Football on Sunday morning around 9 a.m. at Memorial Stadium.

“I had a good meeting with the team,” Frost said.”I saw a lot of fire in their eyes, I saw a group that was excited. I let them know that there’s going to be a lot of hard work to be done, that things were going to change, a lot of things are going to change, but it’s going to be a really fun process.”

There had been some speculation shared by players on Twitter this past week, including Jr. WR Stanley Morgan, Jr., who just set a single-season NU record with 986 receiving yards in 2017.

I LOVE Nebraksa, new coach & offense my senior year is scary
And ESPECIALLY not having Dubb @wideouts, he’s the reason I’ve turned into the person/player I am now in the first place. I know the change was business so maybe I should make a business decision now too.

— $TANLEY MORGAN JR 8 (@Thekidstan) November 27, 2017

“We finally got a new coach,” Morgan said when asked about his reaction. “We finally got a new coach. That’s all.”

Morgan said the Tweet was mainly just him thinking about his future. He said he’s not seriously considering submitting his name for the NFL Draft at this time.

Jr. QB Tanner Lee described Frost as a “sharp guy” and he looks forward to getting to work. Lee said he hasn’t made his decision regarding his future at Nebraska or with the NFL, but he’s optimistic that he could thrive in Frost’s option-style offense; a system that typically relies heavily on mobile quarterbacks.

“One of the things I have to work on is being more mobile and running around,” Lee said. “I’ll just continue to work on that and any other part of my game just like the entire team will. I think we’re just excited to get back to work.”

One of the more upbeat players was Jr. RB Devine Ozigbo, who’s looking forward to being a big part of Frost’s offense in his senior season.

“This is exactly, I think, what we needed,” Ozigbo said. “I think this is what this school needed. It’s going to be fun. People are going to be excited. It’s just an exciting time right now.”

Two players in attendance at Sunday’s press conference were Jr. NT Mick Stoltenberg and Jr. LG Jerald Foster; both Nebraska natives.

“Having somebody that knows about the culture, knows about the tradition and stuff like that, it is exciting and I’m happy that he’s here,” the Lincoln-native Foster said.

Stoltenberg, a native of Gretna, shared Foster’s optimism.

“It means a lot to me,” Stoltenberg said of Frost’s knowledge of Nebraska.”It’s kind of cool seeing him come back to his roots. He went to school here, he excelled here, and he’s from here. It’s definitely just an exciting change for us and I think he’ll definitely be a good fit for us.”

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You can contact Tommy at 402-840-5226, or you can follow him on Twitter @Tommy_KLIN.