Pete Thamel shares compelling theory on Scott Frost, ill-fated Nebraska onside kick

After Nebraska coach Scott Frost made the call to attempt an onside kick Saturday against Northwestern, many were left wondering what was going through his head.

The Cornhuskers were leading 28-17 in the third quarter at the time and there seemed to be more to lose than gain from the decision. That proved true when Wildcats recovered the ball and scored a touchdown on the ensuing drive, going on to win the game 31-28 and making the onside kick one of the biggest stories from Week 0.

With fans still trying to make sense of Frost’s logic, ESPN’s Pete Thamel offered an interesting theory to explain the coach’s decision.

“Let me posit a theory about why Scott Frost did that,” Thamel said on the ESPN College GameDay podcast. “He’s watching Mark Whipple call a completely different offense than he’s ever run. He ran a really successful offense at Oregon. Obviously an unbelievably successful offense at UCF and ran and called the offense at his alma mater. Changes are made, Whipple comes in and Scott Frost — I give (Brock) Huard credit because he pointed this out on the broadcast — looked anxious on the sidelines because he didn’t have much to do. If you’re calling the game as a head coach and you stop calling the game, you’re not bored over there picking daisies but you’ve got some time.”

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Frost has called the offensive plays for Nebraska the past four years, but failed to deliver a winning season in that span. He took a pay cut this offseason and relinquished play-calling duties to Whipple, whom the Huskers hired from Pittsburgh to be their offensive coordinator.

Thamel suggested that might have been a difficult thing to give up, and that Frost was having an internal struggle as he watched the Cornhuskers succeed under someone else’s direction. His call for the onside kick was an attempt at trying to “interject himself into the game” somehow.

“His ego watching his team have success in an offense that wasn’t his and a game being called not by him felt like he needed to interject himself into the game,” Thamel said. “Is it a short attention span, is it actually leading with ego or is it, ‘I’m gonna save my job in one fell swoop?’ I have no idea. I’m not in Scott Frost’s head. But clearly that decision was not made with sound logic. It was not made trying to win the game. It’s very easy to posit the theory that he said, ‘You know what, forget this. I’m going to win us this game and go home from Ireland the conquering hero.'”

Scott Frost was already on the hot seat to start the season, and the ensuing fallout from the onside kick attempt only turns up the heat. No matter the reasoning for his decision, he will look to move on from it beginning with a home matchup at 2:30 p.m. CT on Saturday against North Dakota.