What Scott Frost Should Have Said About UCF's National Championship

So Scott Frost is back in the news again, this time casting aspersions on UCF's national championship claim:

UCF fans' reaction was understandable, if predictable. But this isn't really about the fans. This is about the players. It's breathtaking to me to see Frost openly crap on the achievement of a group of players he was supposedly so close with for the previous two seasons, not to mention half of FBS college football, and the school and athletics staff that gave him his shot to prove he was head coaching material to begin with.

I worked in public relations for a short time, and I was pretty good at writing things like statements. In the spirit of that, here's what Scott Frost should have said to USA Today:

You're damn right, National Champions. And I'll stand by that no matter where I coach. Write that down and print it.All the brilliant marketing stuff aside, the truth is I had the most amazing group of young men playing for me at UCF. The Shaquem Griffins, the Tre Neals, the Tre'Quan Smiths, the McKenzie Miltons. After all they went through the year before I got there, for them to do what they did last year, going 13-0, is the most remarkable achievement maybe ever in college football. I'll put that up against anything that any team did in 2017, no doubt.

All those kids worked so damn hard day in and day out. They amazed me how hungry they were for that whole season. And they handled everything so well, especially when I announced I was leaving. I couldn't have asked more of them, but even if I did, they'd have done it anyway. Without their hard work and dedication, I'm not sitting in front of you right now.

And so what that UCF wasn't in the Playoff? That's the playoff committee's fault, not UCF's. Those kids did everything that was asked of them and then some. They were the only team that went undefeated last year. You mean to tell me that they weren't good enough to face up against Alabama or Georgia? I know better than that. And my coaching staff knows better than that.

And don't tell me about how we didn't play a tough schedule. Go look at what USF did last year. Go look at Memphis. Two of the top offenses in the nation and we beat them a combined three times. We won games in 11 straight weeks after we had a damn hurricane wreck our state and two of our games. Hell, Austin Peay should have been an FCS playoff team and we scheduled them five minutes before we played them.

And we beat an Auburn team that made Bama look small and Georgia look slow when no one - NO ONE - thought we'd have a chance.

These same people who say UCF doesn't belong on the same field as an Alabama or a Georgia have no idea what the hell they're talking about. They're not watching the same game I'm watching out there. They all have agendas they have to serve. That's fine. But let's be honest here, and I may get into trouble for saying this, but we still don't have a playoff that allows us to definitively find out who the best team in the nation is.

I won half of a national title at Nebraska when I was a player. I'd have killed to face up against Michigan that year to settle it once and for all. Same thing with UCF last year. It's not a fair system yet. Now, it's more fair than it was when I played, but it's not all the way there yet.

Hell, it can screw us if things break a certain way, and we're in the Big Ten. Just ask Ohio State.

That has to change. And I'm going to do whatever I can no matter where I am to make sure that the system rewards schools like UCF who rightly deserve a shot to see how they stack up on the field against the Nebraskas and Alabamas of the world.

I've told my kids since I got here that I hope we have half of the work ethic here at Nebraska that our UCF kids had. If so, we'll run away with the Big Ten. Hopefully we'd also get a shot at the title, but in this world, you just never know.

So yeah, I'm glad they put 'National Champions' on our rings. And I'm glad they hung that sign up there in the stadium, too. Those kids deserved it.

And hey, at the very least, it got you to call them UCF instead of Central Florida, didn't it?