News
Bianchi: Why Scott Frost’s ‘College football is broken’ critique should be the sport’s wake-up call
By any rational measure, Scott Frost didn’t say anything controversial at his National Signing Day media conference earlier this week. He didn’t rant. He didn’t deflect blame. He didn’t offer excuses.
He simply told the truth — the truth every coach whispers privately, the truth every administrator tiptoes around, the truth every fan of a non-superpower program already knows:
College football is broken. And the people breaking it are the very ones who wish Frost would just keep his opinions to himself.
Frost dared to say aloud what the sport’s gatekeepers prefer to bury under the blanket slogan of “the new era of college football.” That phrase sounds modern and exciting, but it’s simply a smoke screen for a system that has devolved into a financial free-for-all — one where rules are optional, oversight is toothless, spending is endless and integrity is a luxury only the underfunded can afford.
Frost punctured that illusion with a single line:
“It’s broken. College football’s broken.”
He’s right.
And his critics know he’s right. That’s why the legions of the miserable on social media are attacking him.
The NCAA’s new era of name, image and likeness (NIL) compensation was supposed to give athletes more control, more opportunity and more transparency. No reasonable person opposes players earning money in a system that generates billions.
But that’s not the problem Frost called out.
The problem is that schools are publicly and brazenly offering guaranteed NIL money that violates the very participation agreements that the sport’s new governing body — the College Sports Commission — has asked them to voluntarily sign. LSU’s massive NIL guarantees for Lane Kiffin and BYU’s booster-backed windfall to keep coach Kalani Sitake from taking the Penn State job are just the recent examples that made headlines. For every one of those stories, a dozen more slip quietly beneath the surface.
The CSC was meant to be the sport’s stabilizing force. Instead, it’s become the football equivalent of a speed-limit sign on a highway where every luxury car is going 120 miles per hour — and the drivers all know the cops won’t pull them over.
Frost didn’t invent this reality. He is merely trying to expose it.
Critics, including some UCF fans, say Frost is “complaining,” “making excuses,” or “being naïve.” But the outrage has nothing to do with his tone and everything to do with what his honesty threatens.
When Frost suggests that wealthier programs can simply buy their way around regulations, he isn’t whining — he’s describing the system as it actually functions. You see, when the House vs. NCAA court settlement came to fruition, all schools supposedly agreed to a $20.5 million revenue-sharing salary cap to pay its athletes while the farcical NIL deals — aka boosters and collectives paying athletes directly — were supposed to be banned.
Now you have schools like LSU and BYU essentially promising their coaches that they will supplement the $20.5 million revenue-sharing with millions more in additional cash to pay players.
“That’s baffling to me,” Frost said. “We’re going to sign participation agreements saying we’re not going to do any of that, and then you have newspaper articles come out about how much [some schools] are guaranteed to spend over revshare. … You know, any sport where whoever has the richest boosters wins — that’s not a good model for a sport. So we’re rooting for it to get curtailed. In the meantime, we’ve got to try to do the best we can.”
People who benefit from a broken system have one natural enemy: the person willing to name it as broken.
That’s Frost.
And that’s why his truth-telling has become inconvenient.
Frost also put his finger on the human cost of the current chaos — the cost almost no one wants to acknowledge.
Player development is evaporating. Loyalty is vanishing. The idea of a four-year college career; of relationships, mentorship, maturation, becoming a man and — don’t laugh — getting a college degree is slipping away in a cloud of one-year rentals and transfer roulette.
Some athletes will bounce among three, four or five schools, never anchoring to a community or a fan base or a friend group, never experiencing a homecoming, never forming bonds that outlast the season.
Coaches used to shape young men over several years. Now they’re lucky to get several months.
“The days of going to a school and being loyal to the school and being able to go back to homecomings and support a school that you were at for four or five years … some kids will never have that because they’ve been at three or four schools,” Frost said. “One of the things that I think a lot of coaches love about coaching is the mentoring side of it. That’s getting harder and harder to do.”
Frost recalls an incident right after his introductory news conference when he returned as UCF’s head coach last December
“I laugh about it now, but I did my press conference last year and had a couple players and their agents waiting outside my office five minutes after I did my press conference to start telling me how much money I needed to pay them, and I didn’t even know who the kids were,” Frost said.
Can you imagine the thoughts that must have been going through Frost’s mind at the time? … “Who are you? What’s your name? What position do you play? And you want HOW MUCH money?!”
Why has Frost saying this out loud somehow become controversial?
It shouldn’t be.
He’s simply being honest.
Ironically, Frost isn’t speaking from a place of weakness. UCF is in a stronger financial and structural position than it was a year ago. The Knights can compete in this era — but Frost is asking deeper questions:
Should the richest boosters win?
Should rules be optional?
Should participation agreements be ceremonial?
Should the sport’s soul be sold to the highest bidder?
Frost says no.
More people should say no.
More coaches should speak out. More administrators should speak out. More ESPN commentators should speak out. And, yes, more local media outlets should speak out and challenge the very programs that drive their traffic.
And the thing is, Frost isn’t criticizing the sport.
He’s defending it.
He’s defending a model where culture, development and relationships matter as much as bank accounts.
For that, he deserves praise — not backlash.
In a landscape full of silent cynics and loud salesmen, Scott Frost did something rare:
He told the truth.
Sadly, at this point, telling the truth may be the most revolutionary act left in the broken sport of college football.
Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on social media @BianchiWrites and listen to my new radio show “Game On” every weekday from 3 to 6 p.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com/listen
Malik Reneau scores 21 points and Miami’s big second half overwhelms Southern Miss
CORAL GABLES — Malik Reneau scored 21 points, Miami exploded for 54 points in the second half, and the Hurricanes defeated Southern Miss 88-64 on Saturday.
Miami shot 57% in the second half and had only six turnovers. The Hurricanes had a 30-12 advantage in points in the paint after halftime.
Miami (8-2) led by four points with 13 1/2 minutes left in the second half before a 14-0 run put the Hurricanes in charge, 64-46 with 10 minutes remaining. Timotej Malovec hit two 3-pointers and two free throws in the run.
The Golden Eagles made only three shots in the final 7 1/2 minutes and Miami’s biggest lead was 27 points at 86-59 with a little under two minutes to go.
Malovec, a freshman from Slovakia, finished with 16 points off the bench, his career high. Tru Washington scored 14, and Shelton Henderson and Tre Donaldson each scored 12 for the Hurricanes. Donaldson had 11 assists.
Reneau’s 21 points came in only 18 minutes on the court before he fouled out with 2 1/2 minutes left in the game.
Tylik Weeks and Djahi Binet led Southern Miss (5-4) with 12 points each.
Miami led for only 2:12 in the first half and that was within the first 8 1/2 minutes of play. Southern Miss’ largest lead was 24-19 with 7 minutes left and there would be four more ties, the last when Miami’s Henderson made two free throws in the final second for a 34-34 halftime score.
Miami improved to 6-0 at home.
Up next
Southern Miss hosts Grambling on Monday.
Miami hosts Louisiana Monroe on Saturday.
Elite athletes compete in the DEKA Mile World Championship | PHOTOS
Show Caption1 of 12Al Walkington and Greyson Kilgore compete in the DEKA mile World Championship (1-mile total running combined with 10 functional fitness zones) at the Broward County Convention Center on Saturday, December 6, 2025. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)Expand
