Scott Frost reflects on UCF’s 5–7 season after 41–21 loss at BYU
A 41–21 loss at No. 11 BYU ended UCF’s season at 5–7, but Scott Frost said postgame that his emotions were largely positive, pointing to the progress of a young roster and the leadership of a senior group that helped stabilize a team with more than 70 newcomers.
Here’s everything he had to say afterward:
Coach, what are the emotions in that locker room this season ends?
“I think it was all good emotions. I’m really proud of this group. It’s been an interesting year with a lot of new players and some things that have happened in the program that were unfortunate, some other things that happened that were inevitable.
“But I told the seniors I love them and will do anything for them. I hope they’re the springboard and building blocks of a program that’s going to only get better and hopefully do some good things down the road. And we got some young guys that are going to be good pieces that know what we expect that we can build around.
“I thought the fight today was good against a really good team. My hat’s off to them. They’re a class act.
“Coach (Kalani) Sitake’s one of the good guys in the business. He’s been here for a while and built it the way he wants it to look. And for sure early on, we gave them a run for their money. And I was proud of how the players responded this week.”
How is this a bit of a microcosm of the season? Your team fought hard, but couldn’t overcome some mistakes.
“Yeah, it is. They made plays when they needed to. Their quarterback made some great throws on third and fourth down. Their receivers got open on crossing routes. They made a punt return. They got a stop or two when they needed it.
“We need to start doing those things. And we had our chances too. We could have made an interception and didn’t. We could have caught a long ball in the end zone and didn’t. We need to start making those plays. And that’s just going to be a product of continuing to bring the right guys into the program, developing the guys in the program.
“Our guys fought one of the best teams in the league. And I think showed quite a bit today against a good team. So there was a lot of good things that came out.
“But certainly when we have our chances, we have to capitalize on them.”
Slow starts on the road have kind of been a problem in the previous four games. You guys come out and score 14 in the first quarter today. What kind of progress do you feel like you’ve demonstrated as a group and as an offensive unit to be able to get off to such a good start today?
“Yeah, it’s probably something I shouldn’t say, but I’m honest. Honest, losing some guys. We had a smaller group here today. And a way higher percentage of the guys that made this trip are here for the right reasons, are battling for each other. And I think there was fewer distractions. And I think that played a part.
“You can sugarcoat it if you want to. We played terrible in Waco. We didn’t show up well enough in Lubbock. We battled in Cincinnati, but we made too many mistakes. This is the best we’ve played on the road, particularly in the first half. We’re just not a complete enough team yet to make the plays we need to make against a really good team. Hopefully we’ll get there.”
What kind of hope does it give you to see guys like AG, Waden Charles and Dylan Wade, especially today and over the last handful of weeks, make the plays and make you look a bit more dynamic offensively?
“Yeah, we’re a Florida team. We’re supposed to have speed that other people can’t match. And we have some of those. We don’t have enough yet. You look at the guys you just mentioned, AG and Dylan and Waden, among others. If you go back to the start of the season, none of those guys have played very much football.
“That’s where we can really improve is just having more guys that have a lot of snaps, that have experience. And we were so young and inexperienced this year. It’s been two steps forward and one step back with a lot of them all year. It’s good to see some of them start to develop and settle into their roles and make some plays.”
On the Duane Thomas pick, what went into the decision to throw there? It looked like Tayven had some early momentum.
“Yeah, we wanted to come in and shoot our shot. And we had several little gadget and trick play things and knew it’d probably be tough sledding, running the ball consistently against them with all the injuries we have up front and as good a unit as they have. We thought if we could protect, that we had a chance to win in space and that’s what happened early.
“We call that trick play, I’ve run it before and it’s worked. I don’t think he saw the linebacker. That’s supposed to be a little deeper pass or if it’s not there, he’s just supposed to take off and get what he can.
“Speedy is one of our most reliable and toughest and best players and just didn’t make a good play there.”
How do you evaluate Tayven’s performance today?
“I’ve got a lot of respect for Tayven battling through what he’s battled through this year. It’s kind of similar to our team and I’ve said this before, sometimes we look really good and sometimes we look really bad. None of that’s all on one player. That’s collective as a group and that’s on the coaches, the players, everybody.
“We need to have more consistency and a few more plays here and there change a lot of things. You know, turnovers hurt and our turnover margin, we talked about a lot in the offseason, it hasn’t been good enough. And you’re not going to beat a good team like BYU, giving them more turnovers than you do.”
How do you create consistency and culture that you’re trying to build in the new NIL transfer portal world? You’ve done it before, how do you do it in this new era?
“It’s tougher than ever. Talked to Coach Sitake about it. In his first year coming into the Big 12, he told me they were 5-7. He made a lot of changes on the team, and said we probably should have made more.
“I feel the same way. It’s hard to say that we should have made more when we have 70 new players on the team, but you got to get everybody thinking the same way. And really when you have, we call them culture keepers, when you have guys that understand what you want, are living up to the standards and then hold everybody else accountable to the standards, those guys in the locker room help get new guys to understand what’s expected.
“We didn’t have any of that this year because everybody was new. We’re going to be closer to that next year.”
Defensively, you held them scoreless in that first quarter and then they kind of went on a run for the rest of the game. What’s the difference after that opening quarter?
“If I’m being honest, I think they made it in the championship game last year and we didn’t have a very good record and I think we kind of surprised them with our energy. They settled into the game and probably overall have a better team than we have right now. That’s where I want our team to get a little tougher and when we do get up 14, I think we get the next stop and we find a way to move the ball again.
“We’re just not quite there yet and they woke up and did some really good things in the second quarter.”
You mentioned Kalani is one of the good guys in this industry. Why do you say that?
“He’s just a guy. It’s real. I like genuine people and he’s a genuine guy. I think he stands for the right things and I’m happy for him getting to the championship game.”
It looked like you a stop at the one and caused a fumble. What was the conversation with the refs there? What did you think was happening?
“Yeah, I have to be careful what I say. We certainly weren’t going to get any favors today and I understand that. What I don’t understand is no whistle and a fumble and then kind of arbitrarily saying his momentum was stopped.
“But they push piles 10 times and that’s an exaggeration, six times and run in after a play on the goal line and wait to see if he landed in the end zone or not. But if he fumbles, then the momentum was stopped. So I have to understand that rule a little bit better.
“And to me, it should be reviewable as long as there’s not a whistle and it’s blown dead. But maybe I just don’t understand.”
When do the conversations about retention begin? And what does that process look like?
“To be honest, they’ve started already. The game’s in a bad place and agents have been shopping kids that are playing for teams with other teams for the last six weeks. So I hope we’ve created a good enough environment in our building that kids like being in that we have a lot of kids that want to stay.
“Certainly numbers can change that, if there’s something that our team just can’t match. And kids are doing other things. And that’s too much of a primary driver of what kids are doing and where they’re going. We certainly have some players on our team that we’re excited to build around. And I think they feel the same.”
You’ve played Texas Tech and BYU now. Debate’s gonna rage on through the next two weeks. Do you feel like the Big 12’s a two-bid league this year? Do you think both of those teams are playoff good?
“I hope it is. I think it’s good football. Playing both those teams, they’re both really good teams. And I think on any given day can play with about anybody in the country. So I’m certainly pulling for the league. Having played both of them, I know it’ll be a good game.”
Coach, this one just ended. You’ve got early signing day coming up. How eager are you to get going on another season?
“Yeah, I made a gamer metaphor earlier this week that younger people might understand. I’m not a gamer at all, but back when I was an assistant coach, played a little Call of Duty because all my players were playing that. And I was single, didn’t have anything to do.
“And when you get on the game late and all you have is the starter gun and everybody else has suppressors and advanced weaponry, you don’t even want to play because you don’t feel like you’re armed. And you just get destroyed. To some degree, I’m excited to level up.
“And go back at it next year with a lot of the guys that are capable of being really good players in this league and try to add to it.”
I think this was your first time at LaVell Edwards Stadium. How would you describe the environment? And then also you mentioned Bear Bachmeier had a pretty good game. He’s a true freshman. What type of potential do you see in him?
“Yeah, not my first time. I actually came to a football camp here when I was in high school when LaVell was coaching.”
What year was that? Do you remember?
“Summer of 92. And then I coached here. I was a linebacker coach at Northern Iowa a long time ago. It’s the prettiest backdrop in football, obviously. Love the mountains. People here are really nice to us and appreciate that.
“Bear has a chance to be a special player. There’s not very many guys that come in as 18-year-olds and play with the maturity that he does. So I wish him all the best.”
SIGN UP: Join the UCFSports.com Community for $1
Join the message board discussion with diehard UCF fans in The Dungeon
