Deja Vu? UCF Head Coach, Former Nebraska Quarterback Scott Frost Has Interesting Past with Arizona State
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"If you want to know the story of the game, we lost three fumbles and had three safeties," Nebraska quarterback Scott Frost said on Sept. 21, 1996. "That's the ballgame right there."
Long before ever putting on the whistle and grabbing a play sheet for Central Florida, a young Scott Frost made his way to Sun Devil Stadium as the QB1 for the No. 1 Nebraska Cornhuskers on a September night in 1996.
Nebraska entered the night with a 37-straight regular season game winning streak. By the next morning, it was gone.
ASU took down Nebraska 19-0, thanks to the aforementioned three fumbles and three safeties, in a night that still goes down in Arizona State history.
Frost and the Huskers flushed that night out of their minds, moving on to an 11-2 season in 1996 and a national championship in 1997.
A little over 30 years later, Frost meets the Sun Devils again. This time, in his house: UCF's Bounce House in Orlando.
Sun Devil Stadium might be a house of horrors for Frost, having lost to ASU head coach Kenny Dillingham in Tempe in 2024 as well. But this weekend, it might be Dillingham who has to enter haunted grounds.
"The last time I was at this place (UCF), we lost 56, or 54, to like, 47 in overtime versus UCF, when I was at Memphis in the championship game of the American (Conference), and we lost because our tight end, I kid you not-versus Scott Frost, it just drives me nuts-blocked the defensive end, he pushed him back so far the ball fell into (the defensive end's arms) and boom, picked it off on the goal line. It gives me nightmares, still, so that's my vision of this place. But the Bounce House is a place that's always rocking. Great environment, and like I said, that's my last memory there, and obviously (Head) Coach (Scott) Frost was there at the same time." - Kenny Dillingham in Monday's Press Conference
In Frost's weekly press conference, there was no mention of 1996, 2024, or any other time. Just an admiration for Dillingham and Co. entering Saturday:
"Coach Dillingham, and I've known him for a long time. His brother-in-law is one of my better friends in the world, Aaron. I was down around, I went to a game (at ASU) in 2023. So, fairly familiar with the school and everything about it, and I think there are a lot of similarities. Being in a city, one of the biggest schools in the country, and again, a lot of respect for him (Dillingham)." - UCF HC Scott Frost
There's no bad blood, rivalry or any hidden meaning behind this matchup. But one thing is evident: whether it's just ASU, or the Kenny Dillingham vs. Scott Frost matchup, the winner of this type of matchup ascends, while the loser sinks.
UCF lost all of its remaining regular-season games after losing to Arizona State in 2024, ending 4-8 and missing a bowl bid. ASU did the opposite, winning out and riding their undefeated November to the conference championship.
Moving back almost a decade, Frost took down Dillingham's Memphis Tigers in the 2017 AAC Championship, as mentioned. UCF would go on to beat LSU in the Peach Bowl, while the Tigers fell to Iowa State in the Liberty Bowl.
Even further back, ASU would use the Nebraska win in 1996 to catapult to a PAC-10 title and a Rose Bowl bid, finishing just a drive away from a national championship. Nebraska, coming off back-to-back national titles, would lose in the Big 12 championship and finish outside the top five. (Kenny Dillingham was six years old at the time.)
Does Scott Frost hate ASU and Kenny Dillingham? No, not even close. Does Dillingham have bad blood with Frost? Not at all. Is there a rivalry between UCF and ASU? No, if anything, UCF is probably ASU's least rival-worthy Big 12 opponent.
With that all being said, it feels like Scott Frost and the Sun Devils are forever inexplicably linked since that euphoric September night in 1996.
Now, in 2026, ASU and UCF are both one win away from bowl eligibility, and if the track record stands, one team will triumph and another will plummet after the final whistle in Orlando on Saturday.
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Dan Allison is a graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, graduating Cum Laude in Sports Journalism. He currently works for the Rio Rancho Observer and the Albuquerque Journal in New Mexico and has covering high school sports in both New Mexico and Arizona and he is a contributor to High School On SI. He began contributing to Arizona State Sun Devils On SI in 2026.