When we last checked in on Nebraska head coach Scott Frost, he was busy gloating about how often the players on his offensive line were puking their guts up during preseason practice. That's maybe the kind of thing a tenured, perennially successful head coach can get away with yapping about—he’s crazy, but his methods work!—but when a guy who wins just over 30 percent of his games does it, he comes off as a try-hard. Anyway, the Cornhuskers are three games into the season now, so let’s see where all that hard trying has gotten them.
Right in The Jamoke Zone, that’s where! The Huskers lost their first game of the season to Northwestern, bounced back with a 38-17 win over FCS school North Dakota at home, and then yesterday got beaten on their own field by Georgia Southern, 45-42. Georgia Southern! At home! After going 1-2 in their three opening-season cupcake games, Nebraska has to get ready to host Oklahoma next week, and it's already starting to look like Frost has yet another lost season on his hands.
Surrendering 45 points to a Sun Belt team at home should be the thing that puts a final bullet in Frost's tenure, and yet it’s hard to believe there is still even one waiting to be fired. Frost has been fucking up in this exact manner since 2018, when he was hired and entrusted with restoring some glory to a fading program. He has yet to put together a single winning season. His career record as head coach currently sit at 16-31. Mike Riley, the guy who was fired in order to clear the way for Frost, went 19-19 in his three seasons in charge.
After the game, Frost looked like a guy who knows his time has run out, and spoke like one, too. “We win as a team and lose as a team,” have been the last words of dozens of coaches speaking from their career deathbeds, and Frost is tucked in tight. The interesting question now is not if Frost will get canned, but when. In a delicious twist, it would actually be better for Frost to get himself fired as soon as possible.
Frost recently had his contract restructured, and a new buyout clause goes into effect on Oct. 1, 2022. If Frost is fired after that date, then Nebraska will have to pay him $7.5 million to walk away. If he's fired before that, however, he'll still be owed the $15 million buyout that was in the previous version of his contract.
As someone who does not care one bit about Nebraska football and thinks Frost is kind of a dolt, this bit of information has me rubbing my hands together in greedy anticipation. Frost is one of the few people in history who have found themselves in something resembling a Brewster's Millions situation. There can be no doubt in his mind that he will not survive this season, and so the only logical thing for him to do is try and get fired before Oct. 1.
Next week's game against Oklahoma is his last best chance to leave the school with no choice but to fire him, which means he's going to have to lose in extra humiliating fashion if he wants that extra $7.5 million. My suggestions: call nothing but quarterback draws throughout the first half; angrily approach an official and shout, “Is that allowed?? Explain to me how that can be allowed!” every time Oklahoma scores; work his players so hard they vomit; eat several hot dogs on the sideline during the second half; vomit on himself on the field.
Updated (1:27 p.m.): He's rich!
