My thoughts on Scott Frost getting a two-year contract extension

(Photo Credit: The Associated Press; Nebraska head football coach Scott Frost)

Congratulations to Scott Frost on getting a two-year extension through the 2026 Nebraska Cornhuskers’ football season.

So that means if Nebraska makes a bowl game in his final season, he will be the head coach of the Huskers until at least shortly after the bowl game in January 2027.

Did Scott Frost really do anything to get an extension?

No. This was going to be given to him no matter what.

The University doesn’t want to be forced to hire a new head football coach anytime soon with the six pretty good years of Frank Solich from 1998 through 2003, the four-year experiment of Bill Callahan from 2004-2007, the seven-year run of Bo Pelini from 2008-2014, and the three awful years of Mike Riley from 2015 through 2017 (along with the tragic deaths of punters Sam Foltz [Nebraska] and Mike Sadler [Michigan State] in 2016).

With the news of this announcement today, it feels like the last two seasons (which includes this season) has been, for the most part, a waste of everybody’s time. Except for the people directly impacted, of course, such as the players, coaches and the spouses and children of the coaches.

I’m not even sure I want to watch or listen to the next two games (the remainder of this season) with this news coming out today (Saturday).

I’m tired of these strategic announcements by the University.

First, there was the news of the current Chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Ronnie Green, being hired in 2016. Everyone knew he was probably going to get the gig because he has a PhD from the University.

Then, there was the totally coordinated hiring of athletic director Bill Moos the day after one of Nebraska’s biggest losses against Ohio State.

Third, the announcement of Scott Frost being hired, which everyone pretty much knew was going to happen before it became official. The announcement happened after the University of Central Florida won their conference championship in 2017.

Now this.

You knew something was up this week as ESPN wrote a big long article about Frost and Husker football for no apparent reason. But you just didn’t know what it was.

Another article has since been written about many college football teams including the Huskers, and Nebraska was in the headline and basically it said they expected the Huskers to improve in 2019.

I guess we’ll see what this announcement shows over the final two games over the regular season.

Will it result in two much-needed wins? Who knows, but I would say doubtful.

It shouldn’t really matter at this point because this is interesting timing to make an announcement like this. And a lot isn’t going to change in two weeks anyway. This announcement is likely the official notice to the fan base and the players especially that our bowl season is in preparation for the next two weeks.

And getting to the bowl game and preparing for it is just the bonus at this point.

But Frost’s contract extension is probably the most genuine announcement out of the four I mentioned earlier in this story. The reason for that is because it was unexpected.

Is this announcement now likely to get the team ready for next season? Yes, absolutely.

Let me put it this way, does Scott Frost deserve an extension in the future right now?

What I mean to say, has he earned an additional contract extension?

No way. He doesn’t even have a winning record at the moment.

His current record is 8-14 after today’s 37-21 loss to Wisconsin.

The last time Nebraska missed three straight seasons of not making a bowl game, in the years 1955 through 1961 (yes, I know that is seven years), they hadn’t even had one bowl game victory yet.

So Frost now must be committed for the next seven-plus years at the moment.

Obviously, the University thinks Frost can get the football program on the right track within the next seven years which is why he was offered a two-year contract extension. Because the first two years of Frost has been about fixing (or at least handling) Mike Riley’s mess.

So the next two to three seasons will be about improving each year and not expecting anything other than let’s just say winning more games than you lose and at least one bowl game victory.

The 2023 through 2026 seasons is when Nebraska is going for the Big Ten and National Titles and maybe should be deemed as the “pure Frost era.” I expect the Huskers to consistently get double digit win totals and eleven wins each year would not be a bad season at all. My lowest expectations during this period are for Nebraska to win eight, nine or ten games every season.

The 2025 and 2026 seasons are when the University projects that the Huskers might actually win a National Title.

I think a more realistic expectation for national title(s) are in the 2027 and 2028 seasons.

But all of these projections several years from now are far down the road and who knows what will happen in the world between now and then.

The all-important question: Are the Huskers going to win a national championship between now and the final year of Frost’s contract?

I would say right now that it is highly unlikely. A lot of things are going to have to break right for Nebraska.

I just looked at Clemson’s football history season-by-season and compared it to how the Huskers have played since the Mike Riley era started. This current Husker team is bad, really bad.

The lowest expectations I had for the current 2019 team are they needed to win at least five games.

What did I base it on? Their win-loss result of the last time they played each of their opponents.

Or at least what I thought would be a good prediction for the matchups I couldn’t really look back at within the last couple of years (like the Maryland prediction for next week).

I projected the following for each opponent:

South Alabama (Win)

Colorado (Loss, believe it or not)

Northern Illinois (Loss, believe it or not)

Illinois (Win)

Ohio State (Loss)

Northwestern (Loss)

Minnesota (Win)

Indiana (Win)

Purdue (Loss)

Wisconsin (Loss)

Maryland (Win)

Iowa (Loss)

This season will be a failure if they don’t win at least one of their final two games.