- Former Nebraska AD Bill Moos reveals in new book he wanted to hire Chip Kelly, not Scott Frost, in 2017.
- Scott Frost apparently was unimpressive in interviews with Nebraska and Florida. Nebraska hired him anyway.
You write a memoir to sell a memoir.
And to sell copies of a memoir, you need a few juicy, never-before-told stories tucked inside.
Like this one from former Nebraska athletic director Bill Moos: He wanted to hire Chip Kelly, not Scott Frost, in 2017. He interviewed Kelly. His bosses apparently didn’t like that plan.
“I was met with blank stares and a total lack of excitement when I expressed that to my superiors … I was not told I couldn’t pursue (Kelly), but I certainly felt negative vibes,” Moos reportedly wrote in his newly released memoir, ‘Crab Creek Chronicles: From the Wheat Fields to the Ball Fields and Beyond.”
Instead of Kelly, Nebraska hired Frost, a beloved alumnus who had injected rocket fuel into Central Florida. Frost, though, brought an empty tank to Nebraska.
That’s a polite way of saying: Frost stunk.
He never produced a winning season. Moos didn’t do the firing. Instead, Moos’ successor, Trev Alberts, canned Frost early in his fifth season.
Like Bill Moos, Florida Gators also wanted Chip Kelly
Interestingly, Florida’s 2017 coaching search featured two of the same candidates as Nebraska’s. Kelly was the top target, until he pulled out and took the UCLA job instead.
“I was really hoping Chip would be interested,” Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin told Sports Illustrated in 2021.
What about Frost? Well, he didn’t interview well for the Florida job, school officials later told Sports Illustrated for that story about its 2017 coaching search. That’s a theme with Frost. Moos, too, was unimpressed with Frost’s interview. Frost, according to Moos, showed up to the interview in sweats and unshaven, and he brought a sidekick to the interview. He got the Nebraska job anyway.
With Kelly off the board for Florida and Frost unimpressive in his Gators interview, Stricklin pivoted his sights to Dan Mullen, who had worked for him at Mississippi State.
Tennessee also wanted Mullen. Volunteers athletic director John Currie made him a top target after firing Butch Jones. Currie and Mullen exchanged text messages on the final Saturday of the 2017 regular season. Currie also messaged Mullen’s agent to have him get deal terms to Mullen.
If Mullen ever saw Tennessee’s deal, well, he never signed it.
Kelly picked UCLA.
Mullen picked Florida.
Tennessee briefly picked Greg Schiano. Fans revolted, and Currie got himself fired. The search jumped the rails, and they wound up hiring Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt.
Nebraska picked Frost.
It’s a microcosm of the domino effect of coaching searches. You can think you have your man, until another suitor swoops in and steals him.
Or, you can think you have your man, until your bosses don’t want your man. As was evidently the case at Nebraska.
Moos sang a different tune at Frost’s introductory news conference, hailing him ‘the premier young coach in America.’
‘I believe he was everybody’s first choice,’ Moos said then, ‘and I got the pick of the litter.’
You don’t sell memoirs by repeating what you said at news conferences, though.
Would Chip Kelly have taken Nebraska job over UCLA?
Pruitt, Mullen and Frost each were later fired.
Kelly coached UCLA for six seasons, the final three of them good ones. He left to become Ohio State’s offensive coordinator. He won a national championship with the 2024 Buckeyes. After a failed fling in the NFL with the Las Vegas Raiders, he’s now Northwestern’s offensive coordinator.
Kelly picked UCLA over Florida, so even if Moos believed he had the administration’s support, could he have really secured Kelly for Nebraska?
We’ll have to wait until Kelly writes his memoir to find out.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
