Nebraska Cornhuskers head coach Scott Frost returns to Lincoln with big expectations and a hero’s welcome.
When Scott Frost left Lincoln a hero in 1997, he probably didn’t imagine he would get the chance to return and build his Nebraska legacy even further over 20 years later. Yet, now he has a chance to once again be a hero for a program desiring a turnaround.
A lot has happened and changed since Frost was leading the Cornhuskers to the National Championship. They don’t even play in the same conference as the last time he stepped foot in Lincoln, as a graduate assistant in 2002.
Gone are the days of the Cornhuskers rolling through the Big 12 Conference. Now, they’re embattled in a Big Ten West Conference that has been at the mercy of the Big Ten East for some time now.
While there have been some good teams that have passed through Lincoln since Frost last was seen on Campus, there hasn’t been a championship since he led them to one and those are the glory days a starving fan base seeks in the Cornhusker State.
Bo Pelini had some solid years manning the program from the sidelines each week and finished out with a .713 win percentage. However, Mike Riley only went 19-19 in three seasons with the program and things were certainly trending in the opposite direction.
Neither individual certainly came even close to the conversation that people hold Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne in. With the expectations that Frost is coming in with, he certainly would love to one day be in that conversation.
He’s rapidly ascended the coaching ladder in college football and he’s earned his opportunities as well. He took a downtrodden UCF team and led them to a perfect season in 2017, along with a self-proclaimed National Championship in hand.
Although they didn’t play in the College Football Playoff at the end of their campaign, the work he did with that program in such a short period has led to the further conversation about inclusion into the big dance. He’s become a pioneer with only a couple of years under his belt as a head coach.
Yet, the experience he has gained along the way is unfathomable. Seeing what he did with UCF should give everyone in Lincoln great hope about what he can do with a sleeping giant of a program that’s waiting to awake from a lengthy slumber.
The competition in the Big Ten West should be better with programs on the rise in the division, and of course being a power-five conference. The expectations for Frost might almost be too lofty for a first-year coach, but they should be given everything that he’s done to date.
If challenges are something that Frost thrives on, then there’s no better way to get started than road games against Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio State in his first year as head coach of the program he brought a title to as a player. Now, he begins the difficult road to putting them into contention for one as a head coach.