Hot Seat Week 0: Is this the beginning of the end for Scott Frost at Nebraska?

Things are not looking good for Nebraska Cornhuskers head coach Scott Frost.

Even as AD Trev Alberts said Frost is not coaching for his job in 2021, the pressure was on in Lincoln. Nebraska has won three conference games in each of the last three seasons under Frost and hasn’t made a bowl game. This was the year everything had to come together.

After a 30-22 loss to the Illinois Fighting Illini, Frost’s prospects don’t look great. Nebraska will probably allow him to see out the season, but there’s not much to like from this game. The Huskers got into a 30-9 hole before getting a jolt on Adrian Martinez’s 75-yard touchdown run. The team was able to battle back and had the ball late with a chance to tie the game, but Martinez couldn’t put together another scoring drive.

To make matters worse, Frost lost to Bret Bielema, who was in his first game as head coach at Illinois. Nebraska’s administration and boosters can’t be happy about that. And then there’s this stat, which makes an already unpleasant situation look a lot uglier.

Michigan, another program with outlandish expectations relative to its influence, has had a tough time with Harbaugh at the helm. The Wolverines have been successful for most of the season, but have yet to beat Ohio State in Harbaugh’s tenure. They’re also 3-3 against Michigan State in that time period.

Frost’s contract runs through 2026. If Nebraska parts ways with the head coach at the end of the 2021 season, it will owe him $15 million in buyout money. That buyout drops to $10 million after the 2022 season. It goes down $2.5 million every season after that until 2026. Nebraska fans do not have that type of patience, even for an esteemed alum who led the program to national titles.

It’s not even Week 1 of the college football season and we’ve already got a coach likely counting his days on the sidelines.