All the wrong moves

Scott Frost and an complicated, ongoing story about home.

Courtesy Nebraska Athletics

When most other memories have faded, I’m convinced one of the last details I’ll remember about the Scott Frost era at Nebraska is Sporcle. It was just a detail, but a telling one, in a feature story days before the 2018 season-opener, a time when the only trajectory for Husker football was upward and it was inevitable. Learning that Frost liked to test himself, see if he could name all 93 Nebraska counties—and this was happening at Central Florida—only bolstered his Nebraskan-ness.

It was one thing for the Huskers to land perhaps the most in-demand, up-and-coming coach in the 2018 cycle. That he also probably knew where Furnas County was located was just a decadent bonus, like paying to add the truffle butter to a $65 ribeye at a fancy steakhouse.

The steak never arrived, and of course not the butter. No need to rehash all that, though it is partly the reason I think I’ll always remember the counties anecdote. There was rarely any reason to question Frost’s home-state bona fides.

He confirmed that—sorta—in Texas this week at Big 12 media days, back as UCF’s head coach after more than two years away from the college game. He confirmed it in a way that made most of his fellow Nebraskans angry.