UCF and Scott Frost are meeting.
According to the Orlando Sentinel and other reports, Frost will be the Knights’ next head coach. UCF has been searching for a coach after Gus Malzahn resigned to be the offensive coordinator at Florida State.
Frost, 49, was UCF’s head coach in 2016 and 2017. He was hired to replace George O’Leary after UCF went 0-12 in 2015 and the Knights quickly went 6-7 and were to a bowling game in Frost’s first season. In his second, UCF went 13-0 and beat Auburn to win the Peach Bowl and cap an undefeated season after missing the College Football Playoff.
Frost left UCF after that season to become Nebraska’s head coach in a tenure that did not go as well as Cornhusker fans would have hoped. His teams never won more than five games in a single season. Frost was fired three games into the 2022 season after Nebraska started 1-2 and lost at home to Georgia Southern.
The former Nebraska quarterback was retained for 2022 despite a six-game losing streak to end the 2021 season. During that losing streak, Nebraska announced that Frost would return for a fifth season on a restructured contract, as four of his assistant coaches were fired before the end of the season.
Frost has served as an offensive analyst on Sean McVay’s staff for the Los Angeles Rams this season. Before accepting the UCF job, Frost was Oregon’s offensive coordinator for three seasons and the team’s wide receivers coach for three seasons before that.
Frost does not inherit a situation at UCF that is so serious this time. The Knights won nine games in each of Malzahn’s two seasons, but went 6-7 in his first season in the Big 12 in 2023 and 4-8 in 2024 despite the excellence of RB RJ Harvey. He rushed 232 times for 1,577 yards and 22 TDs, but UCF’s QBs combined to complete just 58% of their passes for fewer than 2,400 yards. The Knights finished just 2-7 in Big 12 play and ended the season with a home loss to Utah. The next day, Malzahn resigned to accept the job at Florida State.