UCF Hires Scott Frost as Head Coach

According to sources, almost eight years after the original hire, the UCF Knights are bringing back Scott Frost as the new head coach. Matt Murschel of the Orlando Sentinel is reporting that Frost will return to the UCF sidelines. Many fans have been clamoring for this move since Gus Malzahn left the program last Saturday. There is a quote by Thomas Wolf in “You Can’t Go Home Again.”

“Make your mistakes, take your chances, look silly, but keep on going. Don’t freeze up.”

UCF has decided that you can go home again and instead of freezing, they are frosting. The sequel is usually not as good as the original film in movies, but UCF is hoping to buck that trend with Frost coming back for another round.

Make Your Mistakes

Long-time UCF head coach George O’Leary’s tenure as the football coach ended with a thud in 2015. He wanted to retire a couple of seasons earlier but was convinced to stay a little longer. He ran out of gas and a talented, but directionless, group of players in 2015 ended up going winless. The Knights and new athletic director Danny White wanted an up-and-coming coach to invigorate the program and found one in Frost. Utilizing the talented roster from 2015 and some new faces, Frost and UCF were able to win six games and go to a bowl game. It wasn’t a spectacular season at 6-7, but the Knights were trending in the right direction and saw glimpses of greatness.

After an offseason of development, quarterback McKenzie Milton went from the kid being booed off the field at the 2016 Cure Bowl to running defenses off the field. The 2017 season started with an explosion against FIU. Mother Nature tried to derail the Knights by hurling Hurricane Irma at Florida and it failed. A reworked schedule had the Knights take three weeks off after the opener and then play eleven straight games. The grueling schedule made some games look closer than they were score-wise, but UCF found ways to win, including some in very dramatic ways. The Knights finished the story with a win over Auburn in the Peach Bowl.

Take Your Chances, Look Silly

It was announced during the American Athletic Conference Championship Game that Frost was going to leave UCF and go to Nebraska. Nebraska was his home and alma mater. He grew up in Lincoln and always dreamed of coaching the Cornhuskers. The story made perfect sense, but the timing was off. With only two seasons as a head coach under his belt, some wondered if Frost was prepared for the rigors of running a Big Ten program. Despite taking his entire coaching staff to Nebraska with him, the team in 2018 struggled to a 4-8 record. The next three seasons did not get much better. His 2019 season was his best at Nebraska as the Cornhuskers finished 5-7. Three games into Frost’s fifth season in 2022, Nebraska fired him. His record at UCF was 19-7 and was 16-31 at Nebraska.

After Frost was fired, news started to come out calling out his work ethic and off-field behavior. It suggested that Frost was often late to practice and not doing his job. For UCF fans, this was a surprise. We can only speculate how much of it was fact and how much was fiction.

Meanwhile, UCF’s 2018 season proved that it might not just be the coach as Josh Heupel led the Knights to an undefeated regular season. UCF’s two-year and 25-game winning streak ended in the Fiesta Bowl. The Knights wouldn’t lose a regular season game until the fourth game of the 2019 season.

Keep On Going

UCF has been looking for a new head coach since Gus Malzahn resigned last week to become the new offensive coordinator at Florida State. Malzahn coached UCF for four seasons. It started in 2021 when it was announced during the season that UCF was moving to the Big 12 Conference. The season ended with a win over the Florida Gators in the Gasparilla Bowl. The following season, which was UCF’s last in the AAC, the Knights made it to the conference championship game but fell short.

2023 was UCF’s first in the Big 12 and unlike their newbie peers, the Knights were able to qualify for a bowl game but finished with a 6-7 record. The sophomore season didn’t go well. Malzahn seemed to lose control of the team trying to juggle the responsibilities of being a head coach in the NIL era and continue to do what he loved and that was call plays. UCF started 3-0, but cratered to a 4-8 finish. Malzahn was not happy with his situation and he found an out that worked for both he and the school.

Don’t Freeze Up

While most coaches work their way back to becoming head coach by going up the assistant ladder, Frost is taking advantage of the current coaching situation at UCF to skip a few steps. The truth is that UCF reached out to a lot of coaches and nothing worked. Frost was not the first, second, or third choice. He was the fallback plan to the fallback plan. Here’s a truth: This is a polarizing hire and fans have been passionate on both sides of whether hiring Frost is a good idea. Here is another truth: Who else was UCF going to hire? Athletic Director Terry Mohajir was in contact with a slew of coaches, including Liberty’s Jamey Chadwell, Tulane’s Jon Sumrall, and yes, even USC’s Lincoln Riley. He wanted his hire to already have some head coach experience. Nothing worked out, so here we are.

What Needs To Be Done

Can the Scott Frost 2.0 era work at UCF? Maybe. There is a lot of work that needs to be done. Since Frost is the guy, he will need to quickly assemble his staff. There is always the possibility we might see a familiar face or two in his hires. UCF needs to learn from its mistakes with Malzahn. The biggest one is the program needs a general manager to help manage the NIL portion and allow the coaching staff to focus on coaching. UCF has already announced they are bringing in its NIL collective, The Kingdom, in-house. Mohajir needs to do his part to help make this a success. He also needs to parlay this hire into filling the coffers. UCF is still under-resourced compared to the other power conference schools. This is a problem both inside the department and in the NIL collective. Sentimentality won’t win games, but it might help with soliciting donations.

What’s old is new again for UCF as the 2025 season gets underway. The December signing day was this week and the transfer portal opens on Monday.