Did We Offer Scott Frost?

[BillySee58]

I'm curious, does anyone know if Scott Frost was ever offered the job, or a final interview? I think Zach Barnett reported that he was among the candidates in the first round of interviews, but obviously the last two were Littrell and Meacham. Curious if he moved on from us as he closed in on the UCF job or if we passed on him as we narrowed the candidates.

Obviously we're all excited with Littrell, and this is definitely not a "we could have had Frost" post. My point is that following a 1-11 season we interviewed a coach who took a team from 0-12 to 11-0 in two seasons and a coach who took us from 1-11 to division champs in two seasons. Potentially, you could argue that we could have had either, depending on how the talks with Frost ended. I'm sure everyone wants another if-Littrell-leaves conversation, but there's no doubt this job would field some top-notch candidates. Gone are the days where people could argue that candidate pool made it hard to make a good hire.

[MGNation92]

I heard Mike Norvell was extremely interested at one point.

[Mean Green 93-98]

45 minutes ago, BillySee58 said:

Gone are the days where people could argue that candidate pool made it hard to make a good hire.

I'm not sure that was ever a legit argument at NT.  Our problem has generally been that we like to pick the worst candidate out of the pool.

[BillySee58]

7 minutes ago, Mean Green 93-98 said:

I'm not sure that was ever a legit argument at NT.  Our problem has generally been that we like to pick the worst candidate out of the pool.

In actuality, yes. Often because our AD was more concerned with picking the candidate who was the least like the previous coach. But yeah, I expect a great candidate pool the next time this job opens up, and for any assistant jobs that open up.

[UNT Mean Green]

1 hour ago, BillySee58 said:

I'm curious, does anyone know if Scott Frost was ever offered the job, or a final interview? I think Zach Barnett reported that he was among the candidates in the first round of interviews, but obviously the last two were Littrell and Meacham. Curious if he moved on from us as he closed in on the UCF job or if we passed on him as we narrowed the candidates.

Obviously we're all excited with Littrell, and this is definitely not a "we could have had Frost" post. My point is that following a 1-11 season we interviewed a coach who took a team from 0-12 to 11-0 in two seasons and a coach who took us from 1-11 to division champs in two seasons. Potentially, you could argue that we could have had either, depending on how the talks with Frost ended. I'm sure everyone wants another if-Littrell-leaves conversation, but there's no doubt this job would field some top-notch candidates. Gone are the days where people could argue that candidate pool made it hard to make a good hire.

Frost interviewed, and was very interested. But the UCF opportunity came up quickly as we were still interviewing candidates (Littrell, Meacham, Riley, etc.), and we couldn’t come close to offering similar or competitive compensation at that time.

[UNT Mean Green]

54 minutes ago, BillySee58 said:

In actuality, yes. Often because our AD was more concerned with picking the candidate who was the least like the previous coach. But yeah, I expect a great candidate pool the next time this job opens up, and for any assistant jobs that open up.

For sure. Times have changed in Denton.

[untjim1995]

1 hour ago, Mean Green 93-98 said:

I'm not sure that was ever a legit argument at NT.  Our problem has generally been that we like to pick the worst candidate out of the pool.

We often picked the cheapest candidate...

[BillySee58]

17 minutes ago, UNT Mean Green said:

Frost interviewed, and was very interested. But the UCF opportunity came up quickly as we were still interviewing candidates (Littrell, Meacham, Riley, etc.), and we couldn’t come close to offering similar or competitive compensation at that time.

Thanks a lot for this response. Good info.

[BillySee58]

13 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

We often picked the cheapest candidate...

I can't imagine that was the case with Mccarney. Maybe Dodge, to a degree. 

[untjim1995]

When we hired Dodge, to back your point up on this, we had a President in gretchen Bataille who was adamant that a coach shouldn’t make more than the school president, from what I’ve heard. So we hired Dodge because he was a cheap hire with a well-known name.

McCarney’s hiring was the first time we changed our strategy and hiring a football coach.

[BillySee58]

12 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

When we hired Dodge, to back your point up on this, we had a President in gretchen Bataille who was adamant that a coach shouldn’t make more than the school president, from what I’ve heard. So we hired Dodge because he was a cheap hire with a well-known name.

McCarney’s hiring was the first time we changed our strategy and hiring a football coach.

Right. But Dodge was still, I believe, the third-highest paid coach in the Sun Belt when we hired him. It wasn't like we could only offer a high-school HC salary and were relegated to high-school HCs in our candidate pool.

We were offering basically on par or slightly above what our competition was paying. He was getting smoked by coaches being paid less. Our peers were working with similar budgets for coaches, and were choosing actual college coaches who were competent at coaching on the college level. I believe we could have done the same.

[MeanGreenTexan]

1 hour ago, UNT Mean Green said:

Frost interviewed, and was very interested. But the UCF opportunity came up quickly as we were still interviewing candidates (Littrell, Meacham, Riley, etc.), and we couldn’t come close to offering similar or competitive compensation at that time.

Yep.  He had interviewed & was top 3.

UNT moved too slow & he was plucked.  We couldn’t match the pay & the process to get Littrell was then fast-tracked.  5 days later, we hire Littrell.

[UNT Mean Green]

6 hours ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

Yep.  He had interviewed & was top 3.

UNT moved too slow & he was plucked.  We couldn’t match the pay & the process to get Littrell was then fast-tracked.  5 days later, we hire Littrell.

Partly true. Timing didn’t matter that much on Frost as he expressed interest in the UCF job early on. Talks with Littrell were going in for nearly 2 months before he was hired. Littrell was always near or at the top of the list, especially as UNC was having its best season in a long time.