{"id":73835,"date":"2025-12-06T22:42:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T22:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/73835\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T22:42:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T22:42:08","slug":"ucfs-scott-frost-college-football-is-broken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/73835\/","title":{"rendered":"UCF’s Scott Frost: “College football is broken”"},"content":{"rendered":"

By any rational measure, Scott Frost didn\u2019t say anything controversial at his National Signing Day<\/a> media\u00a0 conference earlier this week. He didn\u2019t rant. He didn\u2019t deflect blame. He didn\u2019t offer excuses.<\/p>\n

He simply told the truth \u2014 the truth every coach whispers<\/a> privately, the truth every administrator tiptoes around, the truth every fan of a non-superpower program already knows:<\/p>\n

College football is broken. And the people breaking it<\/a> are the very ones who wish Frost would just keep his opinions to himself.<\/p>\n

Frost dared to say aloud what the sport\u2019s gatekeepers prefer to bury under the blanket slogan of \u201cthe new era of college football.\u201d That phrase sounds modern and exciting, but it\u2019s simply a smoke screen for a system that has devolved into a financial free-for-all \u2014 one where rules are optional, oversight is toothless, spending is endless and integrity is a luxury only the underfunded can afford.<\/p>\n

Frost punctured that illusion with a single line:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s broken. College football\u2019s broken.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

And his critics know he\u2019s right. That\u2019s why the legions of the miserable on social media are attacking him.<\/p>\n

The NCAA\u2019s new era of name, image and likeness (NIL) compensation was supposed to give athletes more control, more opportunity and more transparency. No reasonable person opposes players earning money in a system that generates billions.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not the problem Frost called out.<\/p>\n

The problem is that schools are publicly and brazenly offering guaranteed NIL money that violates the very participation agreements that the sport\u2019s new governing body \u2014 the College Sports Commission \u2014 has asked them to voluntarily sign. LSU\u2019s massive NIL guarantees for Lane Kiffin and BYU\u2019s booster-backed windfall to keep coach Kalani Sitake from taking the Penn State job are just the recent examples that made headlines. For every one of those stories, a dozen more slip quietly beneath the surface.<\/p>\n

The CSC was meant to be the sport\u2019s stabilizing force. Instead, it\u2019s become the football equivalent of a speed-limit sign on a highway where every luxury car is going 120 miles per hour \u2014 and the drivers all know the cops won\u2019t pull them over.<\/p>\n

Frost didn\u2019t invent this reality. He is merely trying to expose it.<\/p>\n

Critics, including some UCF fans, say Frost is \u201ccomplaining,\u201d \u201cmaking excuses,\u201d or \u201cbeing na\u00efve.\u201d But the outrage has nothing to do with his tone and everything to do with what his honesty threatens.<\/p>\n

When Frost suggests that wealthier programs can simply buy their way around regulations, he isn\u2019t whining \u2014 he\u2019s describing the system as it actually functions. You see, when the House vs. NCAA court settlement came to fruition, all schools supposedly agreed to a $20.5 million revenue-sharing salary cap to pay its athletes while the farcical NIL deals \u2014 aka boosters and collectives paying athletes directly \u2014 were supposed to be banned.<\/p>\n

Now you have schools like LSU and BYU essentially promising their coaches that they will supplement the $20.5 million revenue-sharing with millions more in additional cash to pay players.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s baffling to me,\u201d Frost said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to sign participation agreements saying we\u2019re not going to do any of that, and then you have newspaper articles come out about how much [some schools] are guaranteed to spend over revshare. \u2026 You know, any sport where whoever has the richest boosters wins \u2014 that\u2019s not a good model for a sport. So we\u2019re rooting for it to get curtailed. In the meantime, we\u2019ve got to try to do the best we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

People who benefit from a broken system have one natural enemy: the person willing to name it as broken.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s Frost.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s why his truth-telling has become inconvenient.<\/p>\n

Frost also put his finger on the human cost of the current chaos \u2014 the cost almost no one wants to acknowledge.<\/p>\n

Player development is evaporating. Loyalty is vanishing. The idea of a four-year college career; of relationships, mentorship, maturation, becoming a man and \u2014 don\u2019t laugh \u2014 getting a college degree is slipping away in a cloud of one-year rentals and transfer roulette.<\/p>\n

Some athletes will bounce among three, four or five schools, never anchoring to a community or a fan base or a friend group, never experiencing a homecoming, never forming bonds that outlast the season.<\/p>\n

Coaches used to shape young men over several years. Now they\u2019re lucky to get several months.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe days of going to a school and being loyal to the school and being able to go back to homecomings and support a school that you were at for four or five years \u2026 some kids will never have that because they\u2019ve been at three or four schools,\u201d Frost said. \u201cOne of the things that I think a lot of coaches love about coaching is the mentoring side of it. That\u2019s getting harder and harder to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frost recalls an incident right after his introductory news conference when he returned as UCF\u2019s head coach last December<\/p>\n

\u201cI laugh about it now, but I did my press conference last year and had a couple players and their agents waiting outside my office five minutes after I did my press conference to start telling me how much money I needed to pay them, and I didn\u2019t even know who the kids were,\u201d Frost said.<\/p>\n

Can you imagine the thoughts that must have been going through Frost\u2019s mind at the time? \u2026 \u201cWho are you? What\u2019s your name? What position do you play? And you want HOW MUCH money?!\u201d<\/p>\n

Why has Frost saying this out loud somehow become controversial?<\/p>\n

It shouldn\u2019t be.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s simply being honest.<\/p>\n

Ironically, Frost isn\u2019t speaking from a place of weakness. UCF is in a stronger financial and structural position than it was a year ago. The Knights can compete in this era \u2014 but Frost is asking deeper questions:<\/p>\n

Should the richest boosters win?<\/p>\n

Should rules be optional?<\/p>\n

Should participation agreements be ceremonial?<\/p>\n

Should the sport\u2019s soul be sold to the highest bidder?<\/p>\n

Frost says no.<\/p>\n

More people should say no.<\/p>\n

More coaches should speak out. More administrators should speak out. More ESPN commentators should speak out.\u00a0 And, yes, more local media outlets should speak out and challenge the very programs that drive their traffic.<\/p>\n

And the thing is, Frost isn\u2019t criticizing the sport.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s defending it.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s defending a model where culture, development and relationships matter as much as bank accounts.<\/p>\n

For that, he deserves praise \u2014 not backlash.<\/p>\n

In a landscape full of silent cynics and loud salesmen, Scott Frost did something rare:<\/p>\n

He told the truth.<\/p>\n

Sadly, at this point, telling the truth may be the most revolutionary act left in the broken sport of college football.<\/p>\n

Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on social media @BianchiWrites and listen to my new radio show \u201cGame On\u201d every weekday from 3 to 6 p.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com\/listen<\/p>\n

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