Decisions on Whether to Stay and Where to Go Made Orange Bowl Quarterbacks College Football’s Big . . . GAMBLERS

The Nebraska high court of big red boosters, alumni and assorted need-to-get-a-lifers has spoken, and quarterback Scott Frost has been found guilty on all charges.

Guilty of treason--for growing up in a proper Cornhusker household (Dad played halfback for Bob Devaney, Mom was a collegiate discus champion) and thus being schooled in all things good, holy and ‘Husker; then graduating from Wood River High as a two-time All-Nebraska prep quarterback, predestined for greatness at Lincoln; then signing a letter of intent to play at--of all the God-forsaken pagan outposts--Stan-ferd.

Guilty of heresy--for transferring back to Nebraska after his sophomore season and having the temerity to replace Sir Thomas (a.k.a. “St. Tommie”) Frazier at quarterback.

Guilty of scandal--for losing his second start in a Big Red uniform and once more in two years while playing for a program that is 59-3 during the last five.

Does the accused have any last words before sentencing?

Oh, you bet.

“I feel I’ve done as much for my team as any quarterback has done for his team in the country,” Frost says.

And: “I don’t have anything to say about how Nebraska fans will remember me. Hopefully, I can cap off this season and be undefeated as a senior at Nebraska. If I’m able to do that, there’s not much else you can do.”

And: “As long as I’m remembered as one of the great quarterbacks in Nebraska history, I’ll be happy.”

And: “If you haven’t been there and you don’t know what it’s all about, I don’t think that you should be very quick to criticize. If people were as quick to criticize the people in the stands who are doing the booing for the things they’ve done, there’d be a lot of manic-depressives out there. Because there’d be people all over.”

A bitter Frost settled in Monday afternoon at the site of this week’s Orange Bowl--and can you blame him?

Frost is 21-2 in two seasons as Nebraska’s first-team quarterback, is 12-0 as a senior, is the first Cornhusker--and the 10th Division I-A player--to pass and rush for 1,000 yards in the same season.

Yet, he was booed mercilessly in the Cornhuskers’ second home game this season, a 38-24 victory over Central Florida.

And he did not receive a single vote in the 1997 Heisman Trophy balloting.

And he did not make either of the first or second All-Big 12 Conference teams.

And for too many of his days at Nebraska--basically, until he engineered the Cornhuskers’ 54-15 triumph over Texas A&M; in the Big 12 championship game three weeks ago--he was known primarily for what he was not.

Not Tommie Frazier.

Not undefeated.

Not infallible.

Not fair?

“I don’t know,” Frost says, sounding upbeat. “Lately, they’ve been comparing me to some of the other quarterbacks. I’m falling into a category with the good ones now.”

The Jerry Tagges, the David Humms--the sub-Frazier second echelon of Cornhuskers who handed off.

“Whether or not I’m as good as Tommie Frazier or Turner Gill, I don’t know. It’s so hard to compare. You’ve got to take into account the teams that they played for and the teams they played against, the circumstances, the offenses. There’s so many factors that go into it.”

Frost believes he was unappreciated by Nebraska fans “at first,” claiming that “I played a lot better my junior year than people gave me credit for. And I honestly think the negativity about me my junior year hurt me my senior year.

“You’ve got to earn your stripes and I think people were a little slower coming around to me than they are to a lot of people.”

Why?

“I think it’s because I left [for Stanford]. We, as a team, had to come in last year and play following two national championship teams. And I think overall, that ’95 Nebraska team--there probably wasn’t a better group to play in the history of college football. And as a team, we just weren’t as good as we were in ’95.

“Based on that, we lost a game early and a lot of the criticism fell on me. I was the new guy. And, also because we didn’t win that Arizona State game. . . .

“People around the state got spoiled. Any time you win 25 straight games or whatever it was, you’re going to get spoiled--and we lost our second game of the year. Come to find out, we lost to maybe the second- or third-best team in the country that year.”

Dozens of Cornhuskers contributed to that loss to Arizona State. But only one of them had bolted the home state for two years of traitorous frolic in Palo Alto.

As Cornhusker fullback Joel Makovicka explains, “Any time you grow up in Nebraska, all you want to do is play Nebraska football. And that’s what 99.9% of the kids do in Nebraska. If they have the chance, they’ll go play for Nebraska.”

But as a strapping, strong-armed quarterback with NFL aspirations, Frost was wowed by his recruitment by then-Stanford Coach Bill Walsh.

“If you look at what happened to Scott,” Makovicka says, “you have a guy that’s won three Super Bowls sitting in your living room telling you to come play for Stanford and he’ll make you an NFL quarterback. That’s hard for somebody to turn down.”

But when Frost arrived at Stanford, Walsh had another quarterback named Steve Stenstrom. Frost sat the bench in 1993, and again in 1994. The development of Frost as an NFL quarterback wasn’t happening. He had a better chance of making it as an NFL defensive back--as a sophomore, Frost started five games at safety.

So, Frost returned home--to Nebraska, to quarterback.

Looking back, Frost understands why his reception lacked confetti and honking car horns.

“Nebraska fans are very loyal to the university,” Frost says. “They’re not always loyal to the coaches, they’re not always loyal to the players, but they’re going to be loyal to the team. I went and tried something else, and I’m sure that upset a lot of people.”

An 11-2 finish and no national championship in 1996 didn’t do much to break the ice, either.

Neither did a sluggish first half against Central Florida, when the home crowd turned on Frost, booing him and calling out the name of Nebraska’s second-string quarterback, Frankie London.

“There’s no second place at Nebraska,” Cornhusker offensive tackle Eric Anderson says. “At Nebraska, it’s either win . . . or win. The fans were a little bit frustrated we weren’t moving the ball as we could’ve been.

“It took tremendous character for Scott to go through that. It made everyone very angry, because he goes out there week in and week out and he’s doing the best that he possibly can. For them to boo somebody who’s giving his best for his team, it was very frustrating.”

A week later, Frost ran for touchdowns of 30 and 34 yards in a 27-14 victory over Washington in Seattle.

The de-Frosting of the opposition lobby in Lincoln had finally begun.

Three months later, the Cornhuskers remain unbeaten in 1997 and Frost remains a significant reason. If this is lost on a sizable segment of the Nebraska population, as well as the voters who select the All-Big 12 team, Frost, at this late date, has turned philosophical.

“Things like that upset you when you first see them,” Frost says of his All-Big 12 snub. “But then you realize what you’ve accomplished, whether or not you get credit. That stuff is fleeting. But I’ll always have ‘12-0 undefeated regular season’ to fall back on.”