Frosty the Snowman, make way for “Frost — he’s the O-Man.”
The “O” doesn’t just refer to Oregon or offense, either — it refers to both.
The UCF Knights are reportedly set to make Oregon offensive coordinator Scott Frost their new head coach. The news broke Tuesday morning and was promptly confirmed by several outlets:
Confirmed via multiple sources, both inside and outside UCF: Oregon offensive coordinator Scott Frost will be UCF's next head coach.
— Brandon Helwig (@UCFSports) December 1, 2015
In the first 10 minutes after the news of the hire broke, I felt ambivalent about the decision. My brain didn’t instantly gravitate to the words “home run!” or “slam dunk!”
However, after the first 10 minutes of initial uncertainty wore off, just a little bit of digging into the history books suggests this is a very good move with considerable upside for the Knights.
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This was an odd year for Oregon, not just because Marcus Mariota left, but because the new quarterback came from another program and was not cultivated inside Mark Helfrich’s structure. Vernon Adams had to learn how to mesh with his teammates. That he got injured — which disrupted much of his and UO’s season — naturally threw an additional monkey wrench into Frost’s plans as offensive coordinator.
This season was so choppy and uneven that after a 61-point (triple-overtime) performance by the offense in a victory at Arizona State in late October, the most prominent columnist in Portland offered a largely negative assessment of Frost’s work. Adams was just getting back into the swing of things following his injury. Maybe that kinda sorta had something to do with Oregon’s less-than-stellar third-down conversion rate. The offense did manage to make stacks of big plays on that Thursday night in the desert, a hallmark of the Oregon offense. Yet, the struggles of previous weeks and the specter of that 62-20 humilitation suffered in Autzen Stadium at the hands of Utah (a team which didn’t turn out to be all that and a bag of chips this season) removed the benefit of the doubt from Frost’s column in the eyes of many.
November certainly changed all that.
There’s no need to make this any more complicated than it needs to be: Vernon Adams got healthy. Oregon’s offense flourished. Helfrich and Frost knew what they were doing. (Don Pellum is a different story, but the offense? Muy bien.)
Frost helped Helfrich and Oregon make the first College Football Playoff National Championship Game last season. Sure, Marcus Mariota was the biggest reason the Ducks went the distance, but give Frost this: He put Mariota in position to succeed, largely getting out of the way and enabling a legendary college quarterback to do his thing. Will Frost get that kind of player in Orlando? Very probably not.
Will Frost be able to sell that 2014 Oregon season to quarterback recruits? Heck, yes.
One can certainly conduct a legitimate debate about Frost’s credentials and make the specific argument that Oregon-level talent won’t exist at UCF. That’s the fundamental position to take if you don’t like this hire. Anyone immediately inclined to like this hire will naturally point to the gaudy numbers and Pac-12 titles and prestigious bowl games Frost reached as Oregon’s offensive coordinator and (previously) the school’s wide receivers coach under Chip Kelly.
Is this the end of the story and the discussion about Frost? Not quite — the “tiebreaker” in this argument, so to speak, is rooted in a longer and deeper history at Oregon,
In Eugene, “O-Men” — bearers of the Oregon name and its Offense (with a capital O) — have done very well for quite some time.
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Want to bet that Frost will succeed (or fail) in Orlando?
Consider the roster of Oregon offensive coordinators since 1989, in chronological order:
Mike Bellotti
Al Borges
Dirk Koetter
Jeff Tedford
Andy Ludwig
Gary Crowton
Chip Kelly
Mark Helfrich
Scott Frost
When you look at that list, only Crowton could possibly be seen as someone who has not succeeded as much as he personally and privately would have hoped. Even then, Crowton won the 2007 national title at LSU under Les Miles. There’s really not a single true coaching failure on this list. Borges’s tenure at Michigan under Brady Hoke did not work out, but Borges did well at San Diego State, and he flourished at both Auburn and UCLA.
Oregon offensive coordinators over the past 26 years have gone on to do better things after leaving Eugene. This is a consistent pattern. Assuming UCF athletic director Danny White used this bit of historical awareness in selecting Frost, the new man in charge of the Knights’ athletic program certainly did his homework.
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As something of a postscript to all this, The American has witnessed an infusion of top-notch offensive wizardry in its young existence. Eddie Gran at Cincinnati is a coordinator who could soon get a Group of Five head-coaching gig. Justin Fuente has already used the AAC as a springboard to a bigger job. Tom Herman is staying at Houston now, but he will get an elite coaching job before too long.
Maybe Scott Frost will coach UCF for only three seasons. However, will that be the case because his career will flame out, or because he’ll become Nebraska’s new head coach in 2019?
No one really knows, but I’d be more inclined to pick the latter scenario instead of the former.
