Scott Frost's close game record at Nebraska is simply unbelievable

As Kentucky has won 32 games over the last four years, we’ve seen the football program in Lexington go through a resurgence. The Wildcats enter the 2022 season with an NFL quarterback and severely high expectations. Those have been created by consistent winning, but not everything can come in blowout fashion.

Playing in the toughest league in college football, Kentucky quite often finds itself in close games in the fourth quarter. It even happens against both Group of Five and FCS opponents. After going through growing pains early in his career, Mark Stoops has found a winning formula in Lexington.

Thanks to a strong running game and a defense that severely limits explosive plays with heavy zone coverage, Kentucky has found a way to go 12-5 in games decided by eight points or less over the last four years. Before that, Kentucky found a way to win a bunch of games in 2016 and 2017 to help start this run.

Kentucky’s success in these games has a lot to do with the program’s growth, but there are some coaches who haven’t figured out a winning formula. Nebraska head coach Scott Frost is one of those.

After going undefeated at UCF in 2017 and claiming a national championship, Frost was the most popular talent on the coaching carousel. Florida made a run in their search that ended with Dan Mullen, but the former Chip Kelly offensive assistant coach at Oregon decided to return home to help bring Nebraska back to glory.

That hire was approved by many with a few sending out some takes that have not aged well if you want to dig into Old Takes Exposed. After four seasons, the famous alum accepted a pay cut and gave up play-calling duties for the first time in his career after a 15-29 start to his career. That record dropped to 15-30 after a season-opening loss to Northwestern in Ireland as a 12.5 point favorite.

If you ever wanted to see many, many people do simultaneous surrender cobras, here's the crowd feed at the Nebraska watch party on that last interception pic.twitter.com/oFRa3GIqI5

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) August 27, 2022

Throughout his tenure, awful special teams and poor game management has often put Nebraska in some bad situations. However, the head coach has yet to show growth in that important area. There have been poor decisions after poor decisions, and we saw that show up on Saturday when an onside kick attempt with a double-digit lead in the third quarter gave Northwestern a short field that turned into a touchdown to get the underdogs back in the game.

The Cornhuskers have lost nine consecutive one-score games after posting an 0-8 mark last season. In 45 games as a head coach, Scott Frost owns a 5-21 close game record. That is unbelievably stunning.

Unless you are at a program that recruits a top 5-10 level with stability, there are going to be a lot of close games that a Power Five team has to manage every year. Your results in those close games will tell us if you’re built for long-term success.

We’ve found out the answer for Stoops and Kentucky over the last four years. We already know the answer for Frost and Nebraska. The head coach’s buyout drops to $7.5 million on Oct. 1. when the Huskers host Indiana in their next Big Ten game.

We all know how this story will end.