Frost busy coaching UCF, recruiting for Nebraska

ATLANTA — Central Florida coach Scott Frost and nine of his assistants will be full-time Nebraska employees immediately after Monday’s Peach Bowl game against Auburn.

Until then, they’ve worked almost nonstop to make sure the Central Florida players feel no disruption in their normal routines.

Knights quarterback McKenzie Milton knows that hasn’t been easy.

“I give our coaching staff a lot of credit,” Milton said Friday. “They would be out till the wee hours of the night recruiting for Nebraska and then still coming to practice at 7 or 8 a.m. to help us game-plan and get ready for this bowl game.”

Frost, The Associated Press coach of the year, and his assistants will finish out the season as No. 10 Central Florida (12-0) tries to complete an undefeated season against No. 7 Auburn.

Frost was hired by Nebraska, his alma mater, on Dec. 2, about two hours after the Knights beat Memphis 62-55 in two overtimes in the American Athletic Conference championship game. Frost agreed to a seven-year, $35 million contract, and he’s bringing most of his Central Florida staff to Nebraska.

Offensive coordinator Troy Walters was named interim bowl coach, giving him fill-in head coach responsibilities when Frost was needed at Nebraska this month. But Walters said Frost and the staff wanted players to feel no disruption to their normal practice routine.

“The first few days when they made the announcement, he had to fly to Nebraska, so I was around for the first three or four days right after the announcement,” Walters said, adding that otherwise the staff “had not skipped a beat.”

“It’s really been the same as the regular season,” he said. “That’s what we wanted. As a staff, we wanted to coach these guys. We wanted to finish. Coach Frost wanted to finish, and we wanted to be as routine as it could be. We want familiarity. What we’ve done all year, that’s what we’re doing leading up to this game, and that gives us the best chance to win.”