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Scott Frost took a joyous plunge into the Miami Beach surf. Minutes earlier, the coaches’ poll had just declared the Nebraska Cornhuskers the 1997 champions of college football.

The vote, elevating the Huskers over Michigan, had come in the wake of Nebraska’s throttling of Tennessee and an impassioned postgame speech by Frost on why legendary NU coach Tom Osborne deserved to go into retirement as a champion.

So, in their elation, Frost and his offensive mates in the early-morning darkness headed for the beach, lining up and running their trademark option plays against the waves. The Atlantic tide was no match for Frost and the Huskers.

That splash in the ocean, though, became more than just a celebratory swim for Frost. In effect, it marked the final washing away of all the bad feelings the Nebraska native held toward the state’s fans for the harsh way many treated him.

For Frost at that point, all was forgiven.

“I felt that way immediately after the game was over,” Frost told The World-Herald in a revealing 2012 interview. “I love Nebraska. The longer I’m away, the more it becomes a special place in my heart — despite what happened.”

As the Mike Riley-led Huskers flounder in the coach’s third year like a ship with a busted mast, there’s much speculation on a pending coaching change in Lincoln. And for many Husker fans, native son Frost — now the head coach of an undefeated and Top 20 Central Florida team — tops the wish list of replacements.

Of course, Frost for many complicated reasons wasn’t always a favorite son in his home state. A frequent argument on talk radio and over bar stools these days is that Frost would never come back to Nebraska due to bitterness over how he was treated.

Frost understandably has been largely silent on any coaching speculation.

But in a series of 2012 interviews with The World-Herald as part of a book on Osborne’s championship teams — the most significant and revealing he ever gave about his Nebraska football experience — Frost bared all. For the first time, he offered many new details of those rocky times:

The hazing and physical pounding he faced from angry teammates when he transferred to Nebraska after having originally spurned the Huskers in favor of Stanford.

Finding himself trapped between Lawrence Phillips and his former girlfriend in an incident that made national headlines.

The threats and taunts that came after Frost quarterbacked the Huskers during a 1996 debacle in the desert that ended the Huskers’ 26-game win streak. And how the experience caused him to rediscover his religious faith.

The boos he faced from home fans after a 1997 game — ironically, against Central Florida — and his anger at Osborne for his role in helping to create the scene.

His determination at that point to play for his teammates and coaches, not giving “2 cents” for the fans.

And how the progression of his final season and that national championship trophy seemed to heal any lingering hard feelings — from both fans and Frost.

In fact, Frost, who at the time of the interview was an assistant coach at Oregon, expressed enthusiasm about the possibility of one day coaching at Nebraska.

“Absolutely. It’s the No. 1 goal. Sometimes your goals come true and sometimes not. But there’s no other place I’d …”

He paused, seemingly not wanting his words to be seen as dismissive of his current job and employer. Then he continued.

“I guess I’d just say, a big part of my heart is in Nebraska, and I’d love to coach there someday.”

Based on nearly five hours of interviews with Frost for the book “Unbeatable: Tom Osborne and the Greatest Era of Nebraska Football,” we tell the love/hate — or more accurately, hate/love — tale of Scott Frost and his home state.

* * * * *

When Frost returned in January 1995, the University of Nebraska campus was still basking in Tom Osborne’s first national championship, secured just days earlier with a nail-biting Orange Bowl win over Miami.

Frost was scrambling. He had just days earlier decided to transfer to NU after spending his first two college years at Stanford. And at his new school, the new semester had already begun.

Frost was in such a hurry, in fact, that he had not yet had time to go out and buy a winter coat. The only warm thing he had to wear was his Stanford letterman’s jacket.

Frost’s return to his home state was big news, and the campus newspaper got the scoop and an exclusive photograph that morning. His teammates’ first glimpse of Frost was the newspaper shot of the golden-haired boy arriving on campus wearing Stanford’s cardinal and white.

It wasn’t a great first impression. Because Nebraska’s players and fans were already not inclined to like Frost much anyway. It was all rooted in the fact Frost had done something considered next to heresy for a high school football star growing up in Nebraska: When Tom Osborne came offering a scholarship, Frost had said no.

Scott Frost had been the biggest thing to come to Wood River, Nebraska, since the old Lincoln Highway. In the fall of 1992, the quarterback ranked as one of the nation’s best players: a four-year starter; a Parade All-American; such a great athlete, he was a state champ in both the shot put and the 110-meter hurdles. While just about every school in the country coveted Frost, it seemed only natural he would end up in Lincoln.

Home-state kid. Grew up worshipping the Huskers. Tools that seemed perfectly honed for the deadly Nebraska run-and-pass option attack. His dad had even been a Husker, the last starting wingback at Nebraska before a guy named Johnny Rodgers came along. And Osborne would later say he never recruited a kid harder.

But Frost got stars in his eyes. Stanford was coached by former San Francisco 49ers coaching legend Bill Walsh, and he offered promises of turning Frost into the next Joe Montana.

Frost headed to Palo Alto and proceeded to spend two miserable years.

Walsh changed Frost’s throwing motion, fouling up his mechanics so badly he was never quite right again.

Frost’s sophomore year, Walsh asked him to play some safety, raising questions as to whether he was truly the quarterback of the future.

Fighting borderline depression by season’s end, Frost pondered transferring.

As he was personally struggling with what to do, Osborne during a phone conversation actually advised Frost to stick with Stanford. At least go through spring ball and see if things improve.

In that moment, the words only made Frost want to come to Nebraska all the more. It proved to him Osborne was concerned most for what was best for Frost, not how many games the quarterback could win for Osborne.

“No,’’ Frost replied on the spot. “I don’t want to be here.’’ He jumped on a plane for Lincoln the next day.

But the reception from some new teammates was frosty. Their feeling: Hey, we weren’t good enough for you. And now you want to come back and be one of us?

Frost hadn’t even been in Lincoln a month before he arrived at his locker one day to find someone had sealed it shut with white trainer’s tape and posted a sign that read “You are evicted.’’

Joel Makovicka, a Husker fullback and Nebraska native, years later didn’t deny there were some hard feelings for the newcomer.

“If we’re being honest, the guys were pissed,’’ he said. “He had a lot to prove to a lot of the guys. ‘Hey, you didn’t want to play with us. Now you have to earn it.’ ’’

And one way he’d have to earn it was by taking his licks on the practice field.

As a transfer, Frost had to sit out the 1995 season. So he spent that year leading the scout team against a vicious defense that would help the Huskers claim a second straight national title. The Blackshirts also never failed to get in a few extracurricular shots on the turncoat quarterback.

Not one to back down, Frost got into several skirmishes, including one in which a Nebraska defender grabbed Frost by the face mask and tossed him. And he consistently clashed with the Peter brothers, the two hulking starters in the middle of the vaunted Husker defensive front. Scott once gave his parents this assessment of going up in practice each day against them: Jason hits harder, but Christian punches harder.

Frost tried to keep a low profile, both within the team and publicly. But that became pretty tough when he found himself caught up in the middle of a sensational national story after star running back Lawrence Phillips beat up his former girlfriend.

When Phillips climbed a balcony to reach Frost’s apartment, cornered the woman and dragged her out by her hair, Frost had to fight his new teammate to free her and help her to safety. It was yet another wedge between him and his new team.

But along the way, Frost earned a grudging respect from his teammates, some of whom privately marveled at his resiliency. And by the time the 1996 season rolled around, Frost was fully in the fold. He would lead the Husker offense as the team sought an unprecedented third straight national title.

Brashly, Frost didn’t shy away from the challenge of following Husker legend Tommie Frazier.

“I want to do the same thing Tommie did, and that’s win a national championship,’’ he said. “He got his in ’95. It’s my turn in ’96.’’

He had made it all sound easy. It would prove anything but.

* * * * *

Scott Frost was lying flat on his back in the end zone when, in frustration, he fired the football against the goal post — one of his more accurate passes of the night. He had just been sacked by Arizona State for the Sun Devils’ third safety of the game.

Three safeties! No Nebraska team in 106 years of football had accomplished such an ignoble feat. That sack also represented the final points in Nebraska’s shocking 19-0 loss in the second game of the 1996 season.

Husker fans were irate. And they put much of the blame squarely on the new quarterback, a guy they weren’t much inclined to like anyway.

The loss had hardly been all Frost’s fault. The offensive line had played a horrible game, unable to get the run game going and allowing Frost to get hit nearly every time he dropped back to pass.

Frost returned to Lincoln to find death threats on his home phone. A female student in a dorm screamed a vulgarity at him. Fans criticized him in the papers.

While the passion of Husker fans was one of the main reasons the sport was such a big deal in the state, Frost for the first time was being exposed to the evil underbelly of that passion. It wouldn’t be the last time.

What got Frost through that turbulent time and those to come, he’d later say, was a friendship with Art Lindsay, a Lincoln man active in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. They began meeting for weekly Bible study, the quarterback becoming rededicated to his faith. He came to see the ASU loss as something that would lead to a greater good.

And indeed, Frost helped the Huskers rally that season. Had the defense not stumbled in a stunning loss to Texas in the Big 12 championship game, the Huskers would have played for a third straight title.

The Huskers finished 10-2 and No. 6 in the country, a great season by most schools’ standards. Teammates had seen Frost’s confidence grow week by week, their trust in him growing, too.

But he would still fall short of what it would take to gain acceptance in the eyes of many fans.

* * * * *

When Scott Frost ran out onto the field to lead the Husker offense, a very vocal minority made itself heard.

Booooooooooooo!!

The sound was unmistakable, and it reverberated across the state. For one of the few times in Nebraska history, Husker fans booed one of their own.

It was the second game of the 1997 season, and the Huskers were a 42-point favorite over lightly regarded Central Florida. Since it was not expected to be a close game, Osborne had pledged to give backup quarterback Frankie London a series early on to let him have some live-game experience.

But that series came with Nebraska trailing 10-7. And London proceeded to take the Huskers straight down the field to a go-ahead touchdown.

When Frost re-entered the game on the next series, the boos rained down, particularly from the student section. Years later, his mother still got emotional recalling it. I can’t believe they’re booing my son, she thought.

Frost would go on to lead three third-quarter scoring drives to put the game away. In fact, in Osborne’s system that graded his quarterbacks on whether they were getting the Huskers into the right play at the line of scrimmage, Frost had rung up a nearly perfect score. But he clearly was not winning over the fans.

Osborne afterward was livid. “Scott has kept his head up, with a tremendous amount of criticism that I don’t understand.”

Frost claimed he had not heard the boos, but quietly he seethed — both at the fans and coach. He felt Osborne had created the situation by putting the backup in while the team trailed. After the two spoke, he quickly got over his feelings toward Osborne. But not the fans.

Now the Huskers entered the biggest game of the year with questions about the confidence of their quarterback. Seventh-ranked NU had to go on the road to take on No. 2 Washington in an early-season elimination game in the race for the national title. Osborne now feared that a loss to Washington would leave Frost a place of permanent scorn among fans.

Frost made a point of tuning out the fans, telling himself he was playing for his teammates, coaches and family. He joked about the booing in the pregame buildup but let his true feelings slip in an ESPN interview. “I’ll remember my team fondly, but I might not have such special memories of the university.”

Hugely motivated, Frost went out that Saturday and delivered.

Osborne had put in two new plays that took advantage of his quarterback’s hard-running style, and both turned into touchdowns the first time Frost ran them.

After a 27-14 win that wasn’t as close as the final score indicated, a reporter joked that Frost would need to fight to avoid being trampled by all the fans now jumping on his bandwagon. And indeed, the game went a long way toward winning them over.

The feeling was not mutual. Afterward, Frost told reporters he cared about his teammates and no one else. And days later he declared a moratorium on any more questions about his relationship with fans.

He wasn’t forgiving anything. And why should he? In 2012, he said anyone not understanding his feelings at that time had no idea what it was like in his shoes.

“Honestly, you could have given me 2 cents at that point for most of the people sitting in the stands,” he said.

* * * * *

Frost went on to a magical senior season, ultimately becoming the first quarterback in Husker history to both run and pass for more than 1,000 yards in a single year. He also continued his heroics during the unforgettable “Miracle at Missouri.”

With the top-ranked Huskers’ national title hopes on the ropes in the November game against the Tigers, Frost had one of his finest moments, and it surprisingly came from his much-maligned arm.

Trailing by a touchdown with just a minute left and forced to throw, Frost completed four passes to get NU down to the shadow of the end zone. And then on a do-or-die final play, Frost hit receiver Shevin Wiggins in the chest with a pass right at the goal line, only to have a defender jar the ball loose.

The deft-footed Wiggins kept the ball — and the Huskers’ season — alive, kicking at it to keep it from hitting the ground.

Matt Davison, a freshman who would go on to become one of Frost’s best friends, came flying in and made a diving catch that tied the game. Frost then scored the clinching touchdown in overtime.

The close call cost Nebraska in the polls, the Huskers falling behind Michigan. They faced the prospect that even if they defeated Tennessee in the Orange Bowl to complete an unbeaten season, they still could be denied a national championship.

That issue became even more urgent for Frost and the Huskers when Osborne announced days later that the bowl game would be his last after 25 years coaching the Huskers. Frost gave the final tearful speech at Osborne’s retirement press conference and then bear-hugged the coach. He and the Huskers knew in that emotional moment they had to find a way to send Osborne out the right way: on top.

* * * * *

Scott Frost and his teammates wanted to throw up the night before the Orange Bowl as they watched No. 1 Michigan barely hang on to beat No. 7 Washington State in the Rose Bowl. They figured they would have beaten the soft Cougars by 40.

But Osborne convinced his team the door was open if they did a number on third-ranked Tennessee, a team whose roster was stocked with NFL talent, including future Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning.

Frost and the Huskers proceeded to systematically dismantle the Volunteers.

In the first half, Frost’s passing numbers were better than Manning’s, loosening up a defense geared to stop the run. And then in the second half, the Huskers savaged the Vols with 22 straight running plays, producing three long TD drives.

Frost rushed for three touchdowns in the 42-17 thrashing, runs that typified his dogged determination. Osborne didn’t believe he’d ever had a quarterback run harder than Frost did in that game and year. And Frost’s 24-2 career record as a starter ranked with any quarterback in Husker history.

Frost left the field flashing a No. 1 sign to Nebraska’s cheering fans. And at that point, he was ready to make peace.

It certainly didn’t happen overnight. But in the four months since the Central Florida game, the fickle fans had week by week grown in their appreciation of Frost. They were now showering him with love, fully embracing him as one of the heroes of this team. There were now very few holdouts. And Frost had been warming up, too, ready to reciprocate.

“Love you guys,” he was heard calling to the chanting fans.

They loved each other a lot more soon after.

Frost in a nationally televised postgame speech gave an impassioned plea for a split national championship. Yes, the media in the AP poll were going to vote Michigan No. 1. So he made his appeal directly to the coaches.

It wasn’t an impromptu speech. Frost had actually written it down before the game, practicing on the team bus on the way to the stadium.

He asked the coaches who they would rather play, the team that squeaked by Washington State or the one that physically manhandled No. 3 Tennessee? And how would those coaches feel to go 13-0 and be denied a title?

Whether it was Frost’s logic, affection for Osborne or the sheer impressiveness of the win, Frost and the Huskers got their wish.

At 3 a.m. when the polls came out, Nebraska had won the coaches’ vote by the barest of margins. The national title was theirs.

“We got it! We got it!” Frost called out as he celebrated with his family.

Then before his early-morning swim, he stopped by Osborne’s room to thank him for all he’d done for him. He so loved and respected Osborne he would later simply call him “the best man that I know.”

Frost and his teammates soon returned to an adoring state, celebrating the school’s third national title in four years. His Husker career now over, Frost left Nebraska as one of the school’s all-time greats — and with one of the most inspiring personal stories in Husker football history.

* * * * *

Scott Frost went on to play several years in the NFL before following his mentor Osborne into college coaching. He said he’s tried to take all the lessons he learned from Osborne and incorporate them into his own teachings and style, particularly in how to treat players.

And after several stops as an assistant, he’s now in his second year as Central Florida’s coach. The quick turnaround he’s engineered in Orlando has been impressive, the team going from 0-12 the year before he arrived to 6-6 last year and now 7-0.

The success could make Frost a hot commodity for any struggling team looking for a new coach.

And should Mike Riley be fired, Frost is already the top candidate for many Husker fans. Some believe he’s the only coach who could bring back the hard-nosed, hardworking, well-prepared style that was the trademark of the Osborne era, and a coach who could end a frustrating two-decade championship drought.

There continue to be those who say Frost-to-Nebraska could never happen. A meme recently going around the Internet included pictures of Frost, Bill Walsh, Lawrence Phillips and Frankie London, noting how Frost was unfairly booed and viewed as a traitor by the state.

Many questions remain. Will new Athletic Director Bill Moos fire Riley, or could the coach quit? Would Nebraska turn to Frost or go after some bigger name? And if offered the job, would Frost take it?

But suggesting he’d reject it out of hand because of remaining bad feelings for the state and fans would appear off the mark.

Frost had much more to say about Nebraska and its people during the 2012 interview.

“I think Nebraska’s biggest natural resource is its people,” he said then. “There are good people there. Good, hardworking people. That’s the best thing about Nebraska. I miss Nebraska.”

In the end, he was philosophical about his whole experience at the university. He said he learned a lot from what he went through. And he suspected Husker fans did, too.

“It made me a man,” he’d say of those years. “We’re supposed to rejoice in our suffering and our trials. I don’t think any success would be as sweet if it came easily.”

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