Scott Frost stepped onto the practice field at UCF for the first time in over six years, but the surroundings felt familiar.
Back for his second stint as head coach, Frost soaked in the moment as he led his new team through the first day of spring practice, setting the tone for what he hopes will be a return to the standard he once established in Orlando.
Here's everything Frost had to say after UCF's first spring practice on Tuesday.
Did it feel like old times walking out on that practice field today?
"Yeah, it's good to be out on that practice field again. There's just such a good energy out there. The weather's beautiful, and there's palm trees and ospreys flying around and a bunch of kids that love football. So it's a fun place to be."
What was your message after the first day of practice to your team?
"You know, the kids are excited, so they were enthusiastic about going out there. I kind of just let that play out to see how it looked. For the most part, the enthusiasm carried over. The kids want to be good, and we'll see if they're willing to put in the work to get there."
Coach, how does it feel that you can focus on coaching football these next couple weeks and not focus on all the outside stuff for now?
"Yeah, that would be nice. We've got another portal coming up, and there's 100 other things to be doing. But I told some people this morning I'm looking forward to sitting in a meeting room and watching tape of practice.
"It's been a while since I've sat with a group of guys and evaluated practice. We got a lot of opportunity to get better. It was a start. I'm not sure it was a good start, but it was a start. We've got a long way to go, and today was step one."
Are you anxious to really fire this thing up, or do you have to remind yourself to pace yourself?
"No, I'm excited every day. I was really excited to go out there today and be around the guys. It's a good group of guys, and they've shown willingness to be able to work hard.
"They give me the impression they really want to improve on where they've been. If they keep giving us effort, we'll get there. The No. 1 thing I tell them is they just bring the enthusiasm and the effort. We can fix the technique and the little things on the field. That's our job as coaches, but you can't fix effort. It was pretty good today.
"I don't think they quite know the standard that we expect from them yet as far as tempo of practice, running from drill to drill, being full speed at practice, taking care of each other. But they'll learn quick, and as practice went on, I thought it got better."
How long will it take for you guys before you start implementing your offense, your defensive schemes? Are these first few practices just kind of getting a routine together and then maybe doing that later in the spring?
"We're already putting stuff in, and we've put more in so far in the winter than we were able to run today. But it's different running out here with no ball on air than it is against a defense on a field. We had no pads on today, so that always makes it a little sloppy.
"But it's kind of like learning a different language. I mean, you can't learn it all in one day. You've got to learn bits and pieces of it. Our kids are barely conversational right now."
Quarterback-wise, with four guys vying for the job, how do you kind of split up those reps?
"We're going to give everybody a chance. I told the guys yesterday in a team meeting that nobody has a spot right now. They all got to go out and earn them. Honestly, I don't think most spots will be obvious and secured until after fall camp, especially with guys just learning the offense. It's hard to really evaluate because they're not really familiar with techniques or schemes yet.
"So we've got a lot of learning to do, and the competition will continue to happen. The body of work is what's important to us, and nothing's going to be decided early."
What's it like having Myles Montgomery out there when you have such a new team?
"Yeah, some of the guys that have been here I've been really impressed with. Obviously, Paul Rubelt has been a great leader. Myles Montgomery has been a great leader. Several of the guys on the D-line.
"The problem right now is some of the guys we've got are nicked up and not able to go full. I won't talk about individual injuries, obviously, but I think the leadership's been good, and we've got to do a good job as a staff identifying those guys and empowering them and giving them opportunities to be leaders."
How do you establish that standard you talked about in practice?
"The first thing you've got to do is communicate to them what the expectations are, and that's hard to do until you get out on the field. I mean, you can tell them to go hard, but there's different levels of that.
"It started early. We went out to do a walk-through, and we've been doing walk-throughs as an offense all winter, and they were lively and up-tempo, and we went out on the field and looked like we were going two miles an hour. So I don't know if that's habitual or not, but that's not our standard and not our expectation.
"So every time one of those comes up, we've just got to communicate to them what we want and then hold them to that standard afterwards."
Off-season workouts with the strength coaches, what have you seen from some of these players? Do you like what you see from that group?
"Yeah, I was impressed with everybody in the weight room. The type of athlete that we have here, we've got a lot of speed and twitch, and I think a lot of guys needed to be stronger. Probably coming off the field, I'd say a lot of guys still need to be in better shape, but practice will take care of that.
"The guys worked hard, and the gains in the weight room were obvious and pretty substantial, so now that's got to translate to the field, and we get another chance in the summer to work them out in the weight room again."
Obviously the freshmen were always signed before you were here. What was your first impression of them on the field today?
"You know, some of the freshmen that are here should still be in high school getting ready for promposals. I saw some good things, but that's probably how it's going to be for a while is flashes of what they're going to be in between a bunch of mistakes and youth. I'm excited about some of those guys, but we're going to give them the same opportunity as everybody else and see where the chips fall."
A couple guys that weren't dressed for the day, Taevion Swint, Antione Jackson. Are they going to be available for any of the spring practices?
"I just don't want to get in the habit of talking about injuries, but we have a few guys that are going to be limited in spring, a few other guys that are pretty much going to be out for spring. The key for those guys is if they're going to be out, they still got to be taking the mental reps and learning so that they're not way behind when they get back."
What was the emotion, the feeling, getting ready to go out on the practice field for the first time in a while, just in general, and then being back here in UCF?
"It's fun. I really like the staff that we have put together. I'm going to enjoy going to work every day with those guys. The players have been great to be around. Like I said, this has got to be a process, and I think if you're uptight as a coach, you go out and the first time everybody's running any of these plays at full speed against another group or defense is full speed against an offense.
"Kind of had low expectations for today. That's probably about what we got. Some good things and just a bunch of sloppiness that we've got to clean up, but that's why we're practicing."
What do you want to establish during this spring, this next couple of weeks of spring practice? What's the mindset that you want to establish?
"I want the guys to know what the expectations are, like I said, and the work ethic that it's going to take. It's also really important, I think, to start to build a team. Even through winter conditioning, we've got a collection of individuals, a whole bunch of guys that weren't here last year.
"Being able to take a bunch of guys that are new to each other and new to the team and a bunch of coaches that are new and build a cohesive unit and a team out of that is going to be a challenge. You don't really come together unless you have shared experiences and shared adversity, and every time we go out there, we have more chances to do that."
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