Nebraska Spends an Extra $7.5 Million Just to Fire Scott Frost
The only people in Iowa who should be truly happy with their collegiate football program right now are Iowa State fans.
Iowa's offense is absolutely atrocious, and I personally have no idea how they correct what's going on with Brian Ferentz and Spencer Petras still at offensive coordinator and quarterback. Northern Iowa has yet to win a game, and in the first contest of the year, they lost 48-17. Drake just lost to Division II Missouri S&T football team on Saturday, 17-14.
But, there's one thing all football fans in the state can enjoy. We can all laugh at the joke of a program to the west of us -- the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
In 2018, Scott Frost was hired to come in and revamp a stale program that hadn't done much winning. Frost, a Lincoln, NE native and former Husker himself, was supposed to take his team back to the promised land of contending for national championships. Surely, the guy who took the Central Florida football program from 6-7 one year to 13-0 the next could do that, right?
Well, Frost couldn't even make the Nebraska football program mediocre.
By some, and maybe most accounts, the Huskers got drastically worse. And it's not like he wasn't given a fair shot! Frost was given four seasons and three games to show that he could turn the losing culture around, and he still couldn't make it happen. He ultimately posted a 16-31 overall record, and the most games his team won in a single season was five.
Now, he won't get any more chances to redeem himself. As announced yesterday after an embarrassing 45-42 loss to FCS Georgia Southern at home, Frost is no longer the head coach in Lincoln.
Here's the statement from Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics, Trev Alberts:
And here's the kicker of it all -- Nebraska Athletics paid $15 million to buy him out of the remainder of his contract that was scheduled to last until 2025. If they waited until October 1 of this year, they would have had to pay him just $7.5 million.
Yeah. He was that bad.
The interim head coach will be Mickey Joseph, who played quarterback for Nebraska from 1988 to 1992. In the nine games he started as a Husker, Joseph rushed for 1,091 yards and 16 touchdowns and passed for 909 yards and 14 touchdowns.
This is his first NCAA DI head coaching position. Prior to his recent promotion, his only other collegiate head coaching position came at NAIA Langston University during the 2011 and 2012 seasons. He's served as an assistant at LSU, Louisiana Tech, Grambling State, Alcorn State, and others.
One thing that does benefit Joseph as he's taking over the position -- he doesn't have anywhere else to go but up.
These are the favorites to officially take over in Lincoln next year, and you may recognize the first name on the list: