UCF football surprised the entire college football world when it opened up a coaching search over the weekend after head coach Gus Malzahn resigned and took the offensive coordinator position at Florida State.
It’s been a tough transition into the Big 12 for the Knights, as they’ve gone 10-15 since leaving the AAC and need to find the right guy to get them over the hump and back to the level of success that they’d grown accustomed to.
The early favorite to land the job appears to be Jamey Chadwell, the second-year coach at Liberty who’s gone 52-10 over his last five seasons. However, there’s a chance the Knights could lure in a coach who’s already got national championship experience — that is, if you count UCF’s claimed national title in 2017.
According to Jim Williams of Rant Sports, the Knights’ coaching vacancy has piqued the interest of former UCF head coach Scott Frost.
Frost spent two seasons in Orlando as the Knights’ head coach in 2016-17, leading them to a 19-7 overall record, including a perfect 13-0 season in 2017 that finished with a 34-27 win over Auburn in the 2018 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.
After the win, former Athletic Director Danny White claimed a national championship for the team, and the Colley Matrix made it official by ranking UCF No. 1 in its final standings.
Unltimately, Frost ended up leaving UCF for the head coaching gig at his alma mater, Nebraksa, but things didn’t go as they had hoped. After less than five seasons at the helm, Frost was fired without leading the Huskers to a single bowl game, and putting together an overall record of 16-31.
All of that said, is there a real chance that Frost will end up landing the job again? It seems like a long shot, especially with names like Chadwell and Rich Rodriguez having ties to the vacancy, but if he’s truly interested, there’s probably nothing keeping him from getting an interview with the same program he took to the mountaintop less than a decade ago.
