Not Your Father’s Nebraska: Cornhusker’s 40 Year Fall From Grace Continue With Scott Frost Firing
The Powerhouse program of yesteryear has fallen from grace and it’s probably getting worse before it gets better.
In 2021, Scott Frost’s Nebraska was 3–9 but all nine loses came by single digits. A disappointing season but a hopeful one; however, Saturday that hope ran dry. Nebraska dropped to 1–2 after a 45–42 loss at the hands of Georgia Southern. This was the final straw and a was a poetic ending for Scott Frost’s tenure as the best-worst team we have ever seen. It doesn’t matter if the Cornhuskers played a top 10 opponent or an FCS one, they seeming lost them all — but kept them close.
Scott Frost was the prodigal son of Nebraska who returned home after claiming a national championship at UCF (not winning, claiming). He took the Knights from 0–12 to 12–0 in two years which was enough to bring the late 90’s national-championship-winning QB home for a chance to call the plays. The success didn’t transfer to the Midwest where Frost went 16–31 in just over three seasons. We heard Sunday, what we all already knew, that Scott Frost was not the answer and the program decided to move on. When asked about the firing here are some quotes from the Athletic Directors Press conference.
“We weren’t good enough in the games that mattered… I didn’t see that changing at the end of the day,”
“I’ve seen people spend a lot of money and not do a lot of winning… we’re going to get it right.”
Wait, wait, wait. I’m sorry, this from a different presser when Nebraska parted ways with Bo Pelini after he went 67–27 in seven seasons. Yep, the quote about not doing a lot of winning was about the coach who won only nine games a season in every year of his tenure. Obviously, the “were going to get it right” did not come to fruition. This offseason, Nebraska will look for its third head coach in five years and each season the National Championships become a more distant memory.
As I dive deeper into the numbers surrounding Bo Pelini’s career the decision to move on becomes more and more head-scratching. One of the best seven year careers we’ve ever seen and one of the winningest head coaches to be fired for on-field performance. Seven years, 67 wins, nine or more wins in ever season. Over the last seven years here is a list of coaches who have done that*: Nick Saban, Dabo Sweeney. That’s the list. Those guys have the conference and national championships to back up their job security but there are well over 100 college football programs who would kill for that success. The craziest part is that Nebraska didn’t just let him walk, they kicked him to the curb before the season even ended.
*excluded shortened covid season
There is some truth to not “winning the big one” but without a strong succession plan Nebraska was destined to fail. After a move to a new conference and the allure of Cornhusker football wearing off on the country, firing Pelini and starting a regime change was a poorly calculated risk that has taken Nebraska from College Football royalty to a laughing stock.
It’s always easy to make these claims in hindsight, and in all fairness I didn’t follow the intricacies of Nebraska football in my elementary and middle school years but it sure seems like a you-don’t-know-what-you-got-till-it’s-gone type situation. Being so close to greatness with nine win season after nine win season is so tantalizing you make rash decisions to try to bridge the gap. Sometimes, you have to step back, and think maybe the guy you’re about fire is the reason why your in that position. I don’t blame Scott Frost, I blame Nebraska and nature of college football and expectations, but I still don’t want that man anywhere near my program.
