Frost looking for 'it' factor as QB battle continues

CHICAGO - Scott Frost remembers seeing something special in Central Florida quarterback McKenzie Milton from the day he set foot in Orlando two years ago.

Milton looked to have all the qualities Frost was searching for to run his high-powered offense, but the only hesitations in naming him the starter as a true freshmen were his obvious lack of experience and whether he was physically ready for the collegiate level.

While Frost tried to hold off on giving him the keys to start the 2016 season, Milton eventually took over in the third week of the season and ended up starting 10 of the next 11 games.

A year later, Milton put together the best season in UCF history and was a finalist for the Heisman Trophy and the Manning National Quarterback of the Year.

“From Day 1, whatever ‘it’ is as a quarterback, McKenzie had,” Frost said. “He’s a playmaker, he’s got the moxie, he’s got the confidence, he’s got the cool under pressure. We knew he had all those things, we just wanted to make sure he was ready physically, and he knew the offense well.

“He had a good freshman year with some mixed results, but by getting that experience he was lights out in Year 2, and I don’t know if he would have been without playing his freshman year.”

Fast forward to 2018, where Frost now finds himself in a very similar situation with two freshmen quarterbacks who have never played in a college football game, but both have shown exciting potential.

The competition between redshirt freshman Tristan Gebbia and true freshman Adrian Martinez lasted through spring practices and will pick up right where it left off next week at the start of fall camp.

Each player still has plenty of work to do, but Frost is as excited as anyone to see where the battle between Gebbia and Martinez goes before a starter is ultimately announced the week before the season opener on Sept. 1.

“I think they still have to prove it,” Frost said. “You can see ‘it’ in someone right away and sometimes it doesn’t come out. McKenzie definitely had it in him. I think those kids have it in them, I really do. We’ll see how fast we can draw that out.”

Despite their inexperience, both quarterbacks have shown natural leadership abilities that immediately caught the attention of their elder teammates.

“Tristan has been that way since he was a freshman,” senior wide receiver Stanley Morgan Jr. said. “He’s in the film room before the janitors get there in the morning and after the janitors leave at night. I can see the same thing in Adrian. He’s a great leader.”

One of the key separating factors Frost and his staff will be looking for from the quarterbacks on the field is being “a fast blinker”, meaning the ability to recognize and process information quickly and be a step ahead of the defense on every play.

Just as important will be possessing the poise and command necessary to handle the big stage that comes with being the starting quarterback at a program like Nebraska, both good and bad.

“Praise and blame are all the same,” Frost said. “All I have to do is tell them about my experiences in Nebraska for them to understand that the criticism can get too loud and the praise can get too loud. Usually, they’re both wrong, and you just got to keep a level head, keep your emotions level, don’t read any media…

“That’s the best way to handle it. I’ll make sure those guys know those things before the season starts.”

While Gebbia has the advantage of having been in the program for a year, Martinez has quickly closed the gap by immediately impressing with his maturity for such a young player.

On top of that, Frost said the former four-star recruit has already added 13 pounds of muscle since arriving this spring and is now up to 218 pounds - the same weight Frost was at when he quarterbacked the Huskers in the 1990s.

“The thing that impressed me about Adrian is he was able to look really comfortable as a kid that still should’ve been at his senior prom,” Frost said. “He came in and every day you’d see him kind of getting more comfortable. For him to have that kind of command of what he’s doing at that young of an age, that gives me a lot of hope about where he’s going.”