Scott Frost Q&A with Jim Rome

How does it feel to be back home and to hear yourself be introduced as the head football coach at Nebraska?

"It’s exciting. Ever since I graduated, I’ve been a fan and watching Nebraska from afar. At times I was proud and at times I didn’t think it was being done the way it needed to be done. I’ve seen how great Nebraska can be in my time there. I’m just honored they picked me to try and get it back and put it back in its rightful place around the country."

When you showed up at that presser on Sunday, roughly 150 of your former teammates were there waiting for you. What was that moment like and what’s it mean to have that support behind you?

"That’s one of the reasons why I came back because I knew the entire state would get behind us. The unity of Nebraska would be like it was again when I was there. Those are my brothers; those are the other guys that have gone out on Memorial Stadium field. They bled and sweat and won games and they care about the university. To see that kind of support and respect from those guys meant the world to me."

Your name was coming up in connection to a lot of other jobs, ultimately, what was it about the opportunity at Nebraska that made it something you simply couldn’t turn down?

"Number one, it’s home. I wanted to go home. Number two, I think it gives me a chance to win in a place where I’m going to be able to do things the right way. When I was at Nebraska, there wasn’t a classier organization in the country, there wasn’t a more successful organization in the country. I have no reason to believe we can’t get it running that way again. I had a lot of options, it was certainly hard for me to leave UCF. That was a place I cared about and had a lot of kids I cared about. But, a chance to go home and rebuild Nebraska into a national power again, that was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down."

How much of this decision was about your sentiment and your heart, and how much of it was with your head?

"I think there was some of both. A lot of people may have made different decisions, I don’t know. I know this, winning at Nebraska for 30 years, happened every single year. The success that Nebraska had for 30 years through the Devaney and Osborne era and into the Solich era. There wasn’t a university in the country that could match the success they had. Like I said, I had been frustrated at times. There was probably some people running the show down in Lincoln that maybe didn’t understand Nebraska, maybe weren’t good fits. This is a good fit, the time is right and I’m looking forward to getting the players to Lincoln. We had the number one offense in the country at UCF, we get the pieces at Nebraska and we are going to do the same thing. We are going to build a program that Nebraska and people around the country can be proud of and admire."

You made that point a couple times Scott. That you look at Nebraska and say ‘That’s the Nebraska I know’, but other times you would look at it and say ‘That’s not the Nebraska I know.’ You know the fan base, you know the support you’re going to get, you know what these folks are all about, but you haven’t been around this administration or the program in a while. So in that process, what kind of questions did you have?

"I wanted to make sure there was a unity of purpose. At times there, I felt like there were different factions, pulling in different directions and maybe that people had agendas. Everything fell in line for me to come back. I really like the leadership on campus. I really like Bill Moos, the new athletic director. I think there’s finally a process started where we move obstacles to success instead of creating them. Where everybody is pulling in the same direction, everybody has the same purpose and understands their role and what we are trying to get done. If all those things hadn’t come together like they did, I might not have looked at the job. But, I think the time is right to have a renaissance in Lincoln, Nebraska."

You had that conversation with Tom Osborne as part of the process. Obviously, I would imagine he’s a mentor to you, in fact, why don’t you answer that way. What does he mean to you and without giving the intimate details of the conversation up, what are the type of things he said to you? Did he ever say ‘I want you to come back, I need you to come back’? How did he approach it?

"You know what Tom said to me Jim? He said “I’m going to take a hard look at what’s going on and I’m going to tell you if I think it’s right for you or not.” When he took a look at the things that were going on in Lincoln and the new people that were in charge on campus. I think he felt really good about the opportunity to come back and rebuild what hasn’t been the same in a while. When he gave me that OK, that made me feel a lot better about taking the opportunity."

One of the things the players at UCF talk about is the first thing you did with them is develop a love and relationship in the locker room and it had an enormous impact on them. The guys were all connected and that also led to the turnaround. Why was that so important and are you going to do that at Nebraska too?

"Absolutely, it something we are going to do at Nebraska. When I hired a staff at UCF, I hired the best coaches I knew, but more importantly I hired guys that were in the business to be mentors to young men. They were guys that were going to genuinely care about the players and I think the UCF guys that I care so much about, I think they recognized that immediately. When I was in school at Nebraska, we would have run through a wall for Coach Osborne. We knew at the end of the day, he had our best interests at heart and he cared about each one of us. In this day in age, I think that’s vital and I think a lot of people miss that. Young men should want to come play for the guys that I’m going to put in place at the University of Nebraska because that family atmosphere will follow us to Lincoln."

You consider that’s what you developed and that’s what you fostered as exciting as this time is for you right now. You had that incredible bond with your players at UCF, what was it like to tell your players you were going back to the University of Nebraska?

"To be honest with you, it was one of the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I cried a lot. I had a long line of guys that came in. I think they were all happy for me and understood, but it was hard on all of us. I wouldn’t have left there for just anything. We had something pretty special going on down there. We took 0-12 to 12-0 in two years, but more importantly, everybody loved being in that building and around each other. That’s not easy to leave. I get the opportunity now to try and build the same thing at Nebraska and some of those things Nebraska has been missing it for a while."

One more thought about UCF. Are you going to coach the Peach Bowl? If so, why is that so important?

"I want to do what’s right and my first priority is always going to be the players. The players at UCF have scratched, clawed and worked to get the opportunity that they’ve gotten. We are working on right now, the logistics of it. If I can make it work, I owe it to those guys to give them the best chance to win that football game. We are trying to figure out all that now. It’d be great to see them one more time."

When you’re recruiting at UCF, there’s a ton of talent right there in your backyard. So now coming back home, how do you go about recruiting at Nebraska and what’s your message going to be out on the recruiting trail?

"Come play for coaches that care about you, come play for the number one offense in the country, come play in a defense that went from the bottom of the United States to the top 15 for two years with the defensive staff we have. There’s absolutely no reason we can’t get kids to Lincoln, Nebraska. Kids leave places right now and go everywhere around the country. There’s no reason kids won’t go to Lincoln, if they are going to Columbus, Ann Arbor or Eugene, Oregon. I think we are going to create a football environment in Lincoln that people are going to want to be a part of. We don’t need all of them. We just need the ones that want to be there and help make Nebraska a power again."

I feel like it was yesterday that I was talking to you and your teammates about a championship in 1996, but here we are 20 years later. What’s it feel like to you?

"It’s only 20 years. Twenty years seems like a long time but like I said before. Nebraska was at the top of the game of College Football for a long time. There’s no way it can’t be again. It seems like a lifetime to me, but it also seems like yesterday. I want to get that magic back in Memorial Stadium, bring that excitement back. We are going to run a fast up-tempo offense, a modern offense and defense. I can’t wait to see where this thing goes and I want a lot of people to come along the ride with us."