UCF HC Scott Frost on Nebraska Coaching Lesson: ‘Don’t Take the Wrong Job’

There are scathing reviews of your former employer, and then there’s what UCF head coach Scott Frost said about Nebraska, with whom he was the head coach from 2018-22.

“Don’t take the wrong job,” Frost said about the lesson he learned from his head-coaching stint at Nebraska at Big 12 Media Day, according to ESPN.

“I said I wouldn’t leave [UCF] unless it was someplace you could win a national championship. I got tugged in a direction to try to help my alma mater and didn’t really want to do it. It wasn’t a good move. I’m lucky to get back to a place where I was a lot happier.”

After two seasons as UCF’s head coach (2016-17), most notably leading the Golden Knights to a 13-0 season in 2017 that led many to clamor for their inclusion in the College Football Playoff, Frost left UCF for Nebraska, his alma mater; Frost was Nebraska’s primary quarterback in 1996 and part of its 1997 national championship team.

Frost’s tenure as Nebraska’s head coach left much to be desired, as the program went 10-26 in Big Ten play and a combined 16-31 under him from 2018-22, and he was fired three games into the 2022 season.

After a year off, Frost spent the 2024 season as a senior analyst for the Los Angeles Rams before returning to UCF for his second stint as head coach in the wake of head coach Gus Malzahn leaving to become the new offensive coordinator at Florida State. The Golden Knights are coming off back-to-back losing seasons and a 4-8 campaign that saw them start 3-0.

As for Nebraska, former Carolina Panthers, Baylor and Temple head coach Matt Rhule was named its new full-time head coach hours after the team’s final game of the 2022 season. Across Rhule’s first two seasons (2023-24), the Cornhuskers are a combined 12-13 and appeared in their first bowl game in eight years last season, going 6-6 in the regular season and then beating Boston College in the Pinstripe Bowl.

Regarding Frost’s 2025 prospects, 247Sports ranks UCF’s 2025 transfer class 44th in the nation and its 2025 recruiting class 85th. The Golden Knights, who joined the Big 12 for the 2023 season, haven’t won a bowl game since the 2021 season.

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