Possible candidates to replace Scott Frost at Nebraska | College Football Enquirer
Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel, and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde and Ross Dellenger discuss Nebraska’s decision to fire Scott Frost after the Cornhuskers loss to Georgia Southern, and debate which coaches could be possible candidates to replace Frost.
Video Transcript
DAN WETZEL: All right, welcome to the pod, gentlemen. First firing of the year is already here.
PAT FORDE: Not even mid-September.
DAN WETZEL: Scott Frost-- pour one out for the pride of Wood River, Nebraska. He shouldn't have been brought back if you're going to fire a dude three games in.
PAT FORDE: Just a colossal mismanage.
DAN WETZEL: It was stupid then. It was stupid when he got a contract extension after his second year. Uh, this was just not good for Nebraska all around. We have discussed Scott Frost many times on this pod. It seemed like it was going to be great. I don't know how you go 13 and 0 at UCF, two years after they won zero games under George O'Leary, right? They were winless-- takes over UCF, goes 6 and 7, 13 and 0, and then since, he is 16 and 31.
PAT FORDE: It's incredible.
DAN WETZEL: Nothing worked at Nebraska for Scott Frost, except the bank teller.
[LAUGHTER]
PAT FORDE: Yeah, direct deposit was his only victory.
DAN WETZEL: What did he get, $15 million?
ROSS DELLENGER: Yeah, I think almost 16.
DAN WETZEL: 16 million plus whatever he got, you know, while he was actually on the job. 15 million just to go away, what a country. Absolute disaster, I mean, they lose to Georgia Southern. So here is the question. I will start with you, Pat. Who do they hire, and what the hell do they got to do to get Nebraska back? And they ain't going to be Tom Osborne era, but back to, you know, whatever is deemed back in Nebraska. Who and what do they need?
PAT FORDE: I threw-- put four names in the 40-yard dash. I think there are three within the Big 12 who are in the area, who are very good coaches, who overachieve at limited programs, to a degree, recruit the same area, play a Nebraska-style of football, and could all succeed there-- Matt Campbell at Iowa State, Lance Leipold at Kansas, Chris Klieman at Kansas State.
A lot of people say, yeah, all right, Nebraska is not an a-list job. And it's not really anymore. It's not. But it's probably still a better job than those three. They care deeply about football. They-- you have a huge, passionate fan base, more passionate than any of those three. The fourth name I threw out-- and then I'll turn this back over-- was Mark Stoops from Kentucky.
You want to go to a football school, or you want to be at a basketball school? You want John Calipari to decide what your team, what your school is about, or do you want to go to a place where it's 100% a football University? I mean, if he's bothered by that-- and he sure seemed bothered by that--
DAN WETZEL: Mark Stoops coming off a 10-point road win at the swamp against the number 12 team in the country.
PAT FORDE: Yeah, yeah.
ROSS DELLENGER: Looking good, yeah. I know, right?
DAN WETZEL: I don't really-- yeah. Seems like it's going all right.
ROSS DELLENGER: Yeah, I know. I don't know if I were him that I would make that move. But talking to some coaches this past cycle, one of them said to me, there are going to be two things that you're going to see change how coaches move jobs. One is, you know, your determining factor would be NIL. Like, how is your NIL? How are your collectives? What kind of NIL system do you have?
And the other thing is, what-- are you in one of the two conferences? Are you in the Big Ten? Are you-- are you in the ACC? So those two things might, you know-- usually, we think of coaching decisions, and determining coaching, coaches, and how they move on, like, recruiting footprint, and of course money for salary and salary pool. And all that still does matter. But it's interesting that maybe NIL and the actual conference alignment is going to come into play.
And Nebraska has pretty much all those things except a really good recruiting footprint. Right? They probably have great resources. They're willing to spend the resources. They're in the Big Ten. They're in that conference. And, you know-- and again, none of these figures are real, like, confirmed-- but what I've heard is they got $10-plus million at least pledged for NIL, if not more than that-- much more than that.
So they've got a lot to sell. There's no doubt about it. Except, you've got to get on a plane to recruit. Right? I mean, that's the, like, that's the big, I guess, drawback there is that you've got to get on a plane to recruit. By the way, Pat, October 2, 2021 was Nebraska's last FBS win, almost a year, a full year. That was Northwestern, by the way.
PAT FORDE: That's-- yeah. [CHUCKLES]
ROSS DELLENGER: It is crazy, yeah.
PAT FORDE: Unbelievable.
