Following the one-on-one session with the TVs, Frost spoke to everybody else including myself and Shannon Green of the Sentinel. I asked about open practices at the end and got a non answer. Hey, I tried.
Here's everything he had to say:
Why do you think Erik Chinander will make a great defensive coordinator?
"He has an intelligence. Erik is one of the smartest football coaches I've been around. I feel like I got as good a guy from Oregon's staff as I possibly could have. Obviously I'm really comfortable with him and familiar with him. He's got so much character and so much intelligence. In my experience as a football coach, if you're a smart guy you can figure out the problems when they arise. With Erik's intelligence I know he's going to be able to figure out anything that comes his way."
How much does it help you to hit the ground running having a guy you've worked with, Greg Austin working with him as well, and Mario Verduzco who you coached with at Northern Iowa.
"I already have a pretty tight bond with some of those guys. That's not why I hired them. I hired them because they're great football coaches. I've been around enough places in football and have been able to keep track of the guys I thought were exceptional. Luckily, I've been able to get a lot of those exceptional people in here. Greg Austin was vital for me to have a guy that knew our offense from an offensive line perspective so that I woudln't have to teach it. He knows it as well as any offensive line coach that I could have found. He's also a great guy and really smart. Kids are going to love him. Those are the type of people if I have around me that's going to make my life easier."
Can you talk a little bit about Mario? I know you brought him in earlier on to coach at quarterbacks and worked with him at Northern Iowa.
"I was baptized into quarterback play by Bill Walsh in my year and a half at Stanford. Mario also learned from Bill Walsh and was trained by Bill. In fact, I went off and played option quarterback at Nebraska and defensive back in the NFL and then coached DBs, linebackers and receivers. When it was time for me to start coaching quarterbacks again, Mario is the guy I went to to brush up on quarterback technique and fundamentals. That's how I much I believed in him. A lot of what I taught Marcus Mariota and Vernon Adams at Oregon I got from Mario."
With National Signing Day less than a month away, do you have any early enrollees for the spring? Do you expect to focus on Florida?
"We're going to add the right pieces whenever it's possible to add them. There might be an add or two as this semester starts. Florida obviously is one of the richest recruiting grounds in the country. I think we'd be foolish not to do the majority of our recruiting right here around home."
I was at the Under Armour All-American game and a local player was committed to Oregon. Is the goal in the future to be able to get those four and five-star kids to come to UCF?
"We want kids to want to come here. To be honest with you, I'm not as concerned if they have four stars or five stars or two stars by their name. I want the right guys. I want the right type of character guys. The right type of athletes. There's a lot of them around Central Florida. There's a lot of them in the state of Florida and a lot in this region that we can draw from to put together a great team."
I know you said on your press conference day, you'd run what you guys did at Oregon. I know you've watched some of the games, do you feel like there's pieces in place to do that right away or will that first year be a hybrid? Do you think you can run that immediately here?
"We're going to do what we do. I think there's plenty of talent on this team to make a lot of strides to get where we want to get. It's going to be a learning process for everybody. We'll cater what we do to the talent that's on the team right now. I've got a lot of confidence in the guys in this building already. We'll keep adding to that group. There's a lot of talent on this campus right now."
Have you had to change your approach to recruiting coming into a new program with a limited amount of time?
"I think just the time constraints since we got here in December. We're not going to get to know these kids as well as we might if we had a whole year to recruit. But I've been blown away by the type of talent that's around here and the type of talent of kids that are interested in us. We're going to have to fast track this recruiting class, but I think we can put a great one together and we'll have more time to build relationships in years down the road."
Obviously you have needs in a lot of areas, but is one of your biggest needs to find a quarterback that can run this system and be the guy to build this offense around?
"Quarterback is always a priority. If you've got a great quarterback, you win. If you don't, you have a harder time winning. I feel good about some of the guys on this campus right now and we'll try to make sure we always have a quarterback that we can plug in and play."
Did you meet with a lot of the players in December before they went home? How did that go, getting to know your new team?
"I met with each player individually before they left for Christmas break. Told them all to go home and recharge and re-energize and be ready to come back here with a new direction and go to work. I saw a lot of hunger in guys' eyes to get a fresh start, to go back to work and improve this thing and get it back where it was and where we want it."
Can you sense from the players in those meetings that they're excited to compete with a new coach?
"I think a fresh start is great for everyone. Everybody that comes into this program is going to have to earn what they get. You wouldn't want it any other way if you're a competitor. I think a fresh start after a tough season is something that can re-energize the team. We're going to try to capitalize on that and get to work and see if we can make a lot of strides to where we want to be."
With UCF's Fiesta Bowl success a couple years ago and with what Houston was able to do, do you use that on the recruiting trail even though UCF isn't in the Power Five?
"I think this conference is getting better and better every year. Obviously UCF has been at the vanguard of that in years past. That's where we want to be again. There's a lot of other schools in our league that had great success this year. This conference plays great football. I think UCF can be in the driver's seat of that with the resources that we have available to us at this school. That's where we're trying to get."
Obviously with recruiting, Florida is going to be a focus. Are you looking to recruit a little bit nationally as well? Certain states in the Southeast? Have you put together a plan with how you want to recruit regionally going forward?
"We're trying to build this program into a place that people want to come. I hope they want to come here from 20 miles down the road and I hope they want to come here from the cold middle of the United States and come to Orlando, Florida. When we get this thing built the way we want it, hopefully we can attract people from all sorts of places, but the majority of recruiting will done around here."
I know the three names were announced yesterday. Are you hoping to finalize a staff by the end of the week or next week? Is there a timeframe to get other hires finalized?
"I've taken my time a little because I want to make sure I get the right guys in here. I think the players deserve to have the right people coaching them. I've gotten a lot of the people that I wanted to come in here and coach at UCF and everybody has been really excited about it. We'll finish up the staff whenever I'm sure that we're getting the right person or right people in here."
Erik Chinander mentioned how close you were. How close are you? Like best man at my wedding type of friends?
"We're close. I've known him a long time. But he's not here because of that. He's here because I think he's one of the better football coaches that I know. He's exceptionally intelligent and he's got a lot of character. I know the players are going to love working for him and they're going to play hard for him. As good of friends I am with him, he wouldn't be here if he couldn't coach."
Has anything surprised you about this place or this job or this community now that you've had time to get out a little bit?
"I just can't believe the excitement and enthusiasm around the city and the university that I'm feeling right now. Hopefully we won't disappoint and we'll be able to capitalize on that and keep marching this thing forward."
What would you consider a successful season in 2016?
"It's hard to tell. I know there's talent on this campus right now to win. We're going to get this thing turned around. I can't promise it's going to be the first week, but as long as we're working and improving every single day and setting a new standard for ourselves as individuals and our team every single day, I think we're going to keep moving in the right direction."
Will spring practices be open or will be the spring game be the first time we'll get to see how everything is looking?
"We'll work some of those details out as we go along."
