The season hadn’t even ended, and Orlando was already up in arms. Not over the brutal 4–8 finish. Not over Gus Malzahn ditching his $5M job for a coordinator role like it was a better concert across town. No, the real jolt? Scott Frost. The same Frost who had UCF fans printing faux national championship shirts in 2017 and then flamed out like a cheap bottle rocket at Nebraska. He was back. And just like that, UCF football turned into the most binge-worthy soap in the Big 12. Now here we are, July 2025, and Frost is already making waves. He’s picked his QB1. And per Phil Steele, he’s got no time for indecision.
In case your memory’s hazy, UCF started last season hot. Like, burn-your-fingers-on-the-stove hot. They went 3-0, including a gritty win over TCU in Fort Worth. But then the wheels fell off. The Knights dropped 8 of their last 9 games, tumbling to a 8-loss season. What went wrong? The quarterback carousel never stopped spinning. KJ Jefferson, EJ Colson, Jacurri Brown, and Dylan Rizk. A game of musical chairs, and not a single QB had a seat when the music stopped.
Despite having 229.4 rushing yards per game, which was 7th in the country, they couldn’t capitalize. RJ Harvey ran wild, rewriting the record books with 1,577 yards and a school-record TD count. But the air game? MIA. The red zone? A haunted house. Enter $22 million man. Scott Frost. The prodigal coach returned with a fanbase split between hope and flashbacks of him getting outcoached by Purdue. But he brought with him unfinished business and a war chest of portal talent. Now it’s 2025, and things are moving.
On July 23rd, Phil Steele joined the Sons of UCF podcast and spilled the beans. When asked if he got some time with Coach Frost while building his season guide, Steele replied: “Yeah, I did get to talk to Coach Frost. Went over the squad with him, and almost every single position that we went through, calls generally take close to an hour with the head coaches because we go over every position. But almost everyone, he likes the talent that he has. The question is, these guys have done it. A lot of them are experienced. But they haven’t done it at UCF.” Translation: The pieces are solid. The chemistry? Not sure yet.
Now let’s get to the meat. The quarterback room has three contenders left: Jacurri Brown (Miami transfer), Cam Fancher (FAU), and Tayven Jackson (Indiana). And guess what? Steele prefers Jackson. Not officially named QB1 yet, but let’s just say it’s his job to lose. “I like Tayven Jackson. I think he’s really talented, throws the ball well, and I liked what I saw out of him at Indiana in all the games that he played.” The numbers don’t scream superstar but Frost is betting on intangibles.
Look, Frost needs this to work. His Nebraska tenure was an absolute trainwreck. A 16–31 record. Not a single winning season. And a cursed stat: 22 of those 31 losses were by one score. According to Phil, the UCF job is as good as it gets for Scott Frost: “I think it’s probably a better fit for him because of the past success he’s had and the familiarity he has with it. Of all the head coaching jobs he could have taken, this is probably the one where he’d have the best success.”
And that tracks. UCF is no Nebraska. There’s no Big Ten microscope. No 90s title ghosts. No frozen Midwest expectations. Just a hungry Florida pipeline and a campus still riding the memory of 2017. As Steele points out, Frost has stacked this roster deep. Offense, defense, and every corner’s been touched by the portal brush. UCF wasn’t subtle this offseason. They raided the portal like it owed them rent. Tayven Jackson, RB Jaden Nixon, WR Duane Thomas Jr., LB Lewis Carter from OU, DB Jayden Bellamy from Syracuse, and even UNC’s Rodney Lora. Frost is betting big on new blood.
Frost knows Orlando. The fans still rock his name. And more importantly, he understands what UCF football should look like: fast, creative, and dangerous. That 2017 team? They didn’t win because they had five-stars. They won because they ran teams off the field. Frost is trying to recapture that magic. But this time, with Big 12 pressure, portal expectations, and a $22M weight on his shoulders.
Matt Rhule responds to Scott Frost’s Nebraska comment
Last week, the coach raised eyebrows when he made it clear that Nebraska was the “wrong job” for him. The words hit hard, especially for Husker fans still picking up pieces from the Frost era. And it didn’t take long for people to clap back. Urban Meyer weighed in.
Then Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule jumped into the ring at Big Ten Media Days with his own two cents. “I’ve always been very empathetic of what he went through because this was his home,” Rhule said. “Like, if you guys fire me tomorrow, I’m just gonna go back to Cape May and sit on the beach.” That’s a guy who knows what it means to carry a program’s weight on your back. But Rhule wasn’t just tossing softballs. He pivoted and added: “It’s the right job for me. Julie [his wife] knew it. The day we interviewed, she said, ‘That’s the right job for you.’”
The subtext? Frost may have been the wrong fit. But Rhule sees Nebraska as a fixer-upper with heart. And he’s already laying the foundation. The Huskers broke a seven-year bowl drought last season and finished 7–6. Not earth-shattering, but in Lincoln? That’s a long overdue sigh of relief. It’s hard not to see the contrast. Frost, the golden boy turned scapegoat, found solace in Orlando. Rhule, the grinder, is just getting started in the cornfields. Both coaches might finally be exactly where they’re supposed to be. Rhule in a blue-collar rebuild. Frost in a place where he needs to prove himself again. The real question? Who’s gonna write the better second act?
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