American Small Businesses Are Desperate for Foreign Workers

Published

11 months ago

June 2, 2024

admin

Brett Brownlee’s entrepreneurial streak started simply: as a kid, for kid reasons, with his brother. “Growing up, he and I just used to push mowers around our parents’ subdivision to try to save up money to buy basketball shoes,” he says. The venture looks a bit different these days. Brownlee makes a living running Archway Lawn Care in the St. Louis area. The company brings in millions of dollars in revenue each year and employs around 50 people during peak season.

That isn’t to say things have always been easy. Archway’s staffing has been a bit of a revolving door, with many employees working there for a year or less. “At times like now where it seems everyone’s hiring,” says Brownlee, “we don’t get very many, if any, applicants at all.”

To bridge the labor gap, Archway relies on temporary seasonal workers from abroad. In 2023, it employed 29 of them. But that visa program is so dysfunctional, Brownlee says, that it puts him on a “rollercoaster of emotions every year.” Small business owners who use the program have to deal with workers arriving too late in the season, workers leaving too early, or even receiving no workers at all.

There’s “no certainty whatsoever” for employers, he continues. “We rack our brain every day on why we keep doing it because it’s frustrating, to say the least.”

Archway is one of many American small businesses that can’t find enough willing native-born workers and needs foreign laborers to get the job done. The federal government doesn’t make it easy for them, artificially capping the number of seasonal workers who can come to the U.S. each year. That barrier means it’s often easier for workers to enter the country and gain employment illegally.

COVID-era government policies have created lingering problems for American small businesses. Lockdowns caused abnormally high numbers of businesses to close for good. To make matters worse, in June 2020 former President Donald Trump went so far as tobanthe temporary seasonal workers that businesses like Archway need,sayingthey “present a risk to the U.S. labor market.” As of February, there were 9.5 million job openings in the U.S. but only 6.5 million unemployed workers,perthe U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Labor shortages and policies that keep out foreign workers are connected. But America’s main pathway for temporary seasonal workers is broken in ways that predate the Trump administration and the pandemic, and in ways that kneecap the businesses that provide beloved goods and services. FromMaryland crabberstoColorado ski resorts, American businesses depend on a regular stream of helpers from abroad. Yet the businesses that want to do things “the right way” often realize that means going without workers, forgoing growth opportunities, and failing to reach their potential. ‘Half Your Team Is Injured’

The old saying that immigrantsworkthejobsthat Americans don’t want is generally truebut it’s especially true in the context of seasonal employment. “Finding labor to work [the] seasonality of our business has been challenging,” says Christian Sain, director of golf and grounds management for the Richmond-based Country Club of Virginia. “This is where the H-2B program has been something that fits our industry well, fits our golf course well.”

The H-2B visa is a pathway that exists to bring temporary, nonimmigrant, nonagricultural workers to American businesses. The landscaping industryemploysthe most H-2B workers, but seasonal laborers also find work at carnivals and amusement parks, fisheries, restaurants, resorts, and more. Most H-2B workers come from Latin America, but Jamaica, the Philippines, South Africa, Serbia, and Ukraine alsosentthousands of laborers in FY 2022. Their contributions keep outdoor spaces beautiful, ensure that popular seasonal institutions operate smoothly, and allow small businesses to keep providing the goods and services that consumers rely on.

Small business job openings have finally fallen to pre-pandemic levels, according to a March National Federation of Independent Business surveybut 86 percent of small business owners “hiring or trying to hire” reported “few or no qualified” applicants nonetheless. There were more than a million open jobs in construction and manufacturing and over 1.1 million open jobs in leisure and hospitality as of February,accordingto the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The H-2B visa program ideally could help solve these problems. But in its current form, it can’t reliably get willing workers to employers when they’re needed and it can’t respond to the forces of supply and demand. It’s also horribly complex,boastingover 175 rules that regulate everything from recruitment to wages.

The governmentissuesH-2B visas in two rounds: one starting in October and the other in April. “About 150 days before the job start date,”wroteDavid J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, in a 2021 Cato paper, an employer must “submit a prevailing wage determination” to the Department of Labor. (This is the minimum wage for H-2B workers, and as of 2020, the hourlyaveragewas $14.09.) American employers must file a temporary labor certification, which “determine[s] whether or not there are sufficient qualified U.S. workers who will be available and that any employment of H-2B workers will not ‘adversely affect’ the wages and working conditions of similarly employed American workers,” Bier continued. Employers are placed into groups based on their filing order.

That order has a huge impact on when a business receives its workersand whether it gets them at all. Lucky filers land in Group A, which the Department of Labor adjudicates first. This year, the Country Club of Virginia is in Group Fthesecond-to-lastgroupwhich means “we have no chance of getting our workers at all,” says Sain. “Right now, we’re just falling behind because we don’t have our workers….It’s like being on a team and half your team is injured.”

Workers often arrive too late in the season, explains Andrew Bray, senior vice president of government relations and membership at the National Association of Landscape Professionals. “That’s always what the issue is,” says Bray. Landscaping companies are “signing these contracts sometimes with liquidated damages provisions and they’re not sure if they’re even going to have their workers.”

“We have 29 H-2B guys that are all getting ready to go home in the next three weeks or so,” per the visa program’s rules, Brownlee said in early November. “But I have probably six weeks’ to eight weeks’ worth of work left still to do that’s already been sold with my labor here….Now I have to go back to my customers and tell them, ‘Sorry, our labor force had to go home, and I can’t find enough guys locally, and now we have to wait until spring.'”

Even though 2023 was a record year for Archway and the business got all the H-2B workers it applied for, Brownlee says, “We’re not going to go out and buy a bunch of new equipment or new trucks or anything like that for next year, because we don’t know if we’re going to get these same guys back next year or not.” That’s money that won’t reach other businesses and keep the economy moving.

The government knows there’s huge demand for the program. In 2022, the Department of Laborapprovedabout 210,000 petitions by employers for H-2B workers, Bray says. “But we have this cap that doesn’t reflect the actual demand.” Only 66,000 H-2B visas aregrantedevery yeara limit that hasn’t changed since it wasestablishedin 1990. In other words, the government acknowledges a need for H-2B visas that is far greater than the number of visas that regulations allow to be issued each year.

Because the visas are distributed via a randomized lottery, many employers who apply for workers simply lose out. The lottery “selects entire petitionswhich include all the workers that an individual employer is seekingrather than selecting individual beneficiaries from each petition,” wrote Bier, so “employers either receive all their workers or none.”

On top of that, the program is very expensive for the businesses that se it. The Seasonal Employment Alliance, an H-2B advocacy group,estimatedthat employers spend between $1,500 and $3,000 for each H-2B worker they bring in. Administrative costs tend toaddan extra $1 to $3 to the hourly wage employers are mandated to pay H-2B workers, “bringing the real cost of employing H-2B workers well above what it would cost to hire US workers.”

Thanks to all these mandates and regulations, it would be far easier for a small business to hire undocumented immigrants than laborers on work visas. “I’ve had more illegal immigrants or people without papers try to get jobs with us than any local help,” says Brownlee. “Having to turn them away, it’s frustrating, because we’ve spent over a decade using the H-2B program, doing everything in our power to keep a legal work force, and I’ve got people that are willing to work that don’t have papers and I have to tell them ‘no.'”

“It kind of puts companies like us between a rock and a hard spot of trying to keep a legal work force and stay competitive,” he adds. ‘A Risk to the U.S. Labor Market’

One of the most visible roadblocks to a better visa pathway consists of politicians who otherwise claim to champion the interests of small businesses and American workers.

As an ostensibly COVID-related measure in April 2020, Trumpissuedan executive order suspending green cards for certain immigrants whose entry he argued would be economically “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” At the time, due in part tooppositionfrom business groups, he didn’ttouchtemporary visas for seasonal workers, farm workers, and other foreigners.

But a month later, with the U.S. economy still in shambles, Sens. Tom Cotton (RArk.), Ted Cruz (RTexas), Josh Hawley (RMo.), and Chuck Grassley (RIowa)urgedTrump to suspend many of those visas for up to a year “or until unemployment has returned to normal levels.” The country’s “guest worker programs,” including the H-2B visa, “remain a serious threat to the U.S. labor market’s recovery,” argued the senators. “There is no reason why” young people “should not have access to seasonal, nonagricultural work…before those positions are given to imported foreign labor under the H-2B program,” they continued.

Trump granted their wish in anexecutive orderone month later. A Department of Labor and Department of Homeland Security review of nonimmigrant visa programs, Trump’s order explained, found that “the present admission of workers within several…categories also poses a risk of displacing and disadvantaging United States workers during the current recovery.” He barred the entry of certain nonimmigrant workersincluding H-2B visa holdersthrough the end of 2020. Trump would laterextendthe order, with President Joe Biden rescinding it in February 2021. (Trump, it should be said, hasemployedhundreds of H-2B workers at his golf clubs and resorts over the years.)

Opponents of these work visa programs often hold the common yet mistaken view that foreign workers displace American ones. But after Trump banned H-2B workers, Biernotedthat “government data show that almost no U.S. workers applied for H-2B jobs, despite the spike in unemployment.” Brownlee explains that the extra revenue Archway gets thanks to its H-2B workers “allows us to pay [American workers] more to be supervisors and managers for these guys who are coming in on these seasonal visas.”

“It’s created opportunities for guys internally here that started with us literally 10 years ago making 10 bucks an hour that are now making anywhere from $5070,000 a year,” he adds.

“Each H-2B worker actually supports 4.6 U.S. jobs,” says Bray. “That means a company that can hire more workers to make sure they can fulfill the positions within their own organization, that company can grow.”

The issues with H-2B visas and other nonimmigrant work programs don’t always come up in the political battles. They’re hidden within layers of the antiquated U.S. immigration system and all its artificial caps and bureaucratic bloat. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a Democratic administration or a Republican administration,” Brownlee says. “It’s been the same way for probably six or seven of the last 10 years.”

By design, the H-2B visaand many other work visas, temporary or notis not responsive to market forces. Visa caps all but guarantee that supply won’t match demand. The government also mandates that businesses try to recruit American workers before they can hire H-2B workers. “Even if U.S. workers reject the jobs, the law can still require the positions to go unfilled, thus harming employers and U.S. workers in complementary employment,”wroteBier. Doing away with these barriers would mean removing layers of protectionism that stifle the U.S. economy.

Issuing more temporary work visas could also help reduce the number of unauthorized crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border. “The vast increase in the number of H-2 guest worker visas issued to Mexicans can explain a large percentage of the decrease in Mexican illegal immigrants,”wrotethe Cato Institute’s Alex Nowrasteh and Andrew C. Forrester in 2019. “From 20002018, a 1 percent increase in the number of H-2 visas for Mexicans is associated with a 1.04 percent decline in the number of Mexicans apprehended on average.”

Theyconcludedthat it would be “simpler and cheaper to issue more H-2 visas than to hire more Border Patrol agents” to address unauthorized immigration. Instead, U.S. officials have chosen a path that encourages more chaos at the border and punishes Americans whose businesses can’t survive without foreign workers. ‘The Short End of the Stick’

Small businesses have seen relief here and there, but not the solutions they say they need.

“There’s been various increases in the past through one-year policy changes,” says Bray. The Department of Homeland Securityannouncedin early November that it would do just that for FY 2024, releasing over 64,000 supplemental H-2B visas. But businesses that use the program are still waiting on a lasting solution, Bray notes: “We need a more permanent fix to the cap so it actually reflects demand.”

One fix that Brownlee wants is a returning worker exemptionan exemption to the annual cap for workers previously employed under the H-2B program. “Congress previously passed such an exemption for fiscal years 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2016,”wroteBloomberg’s Andrew Kreighbaum. Lawmakers tried to pass a returning worker measure in a Department of Homeland Security funding bill in September 2023, Kreighbaumreportedat the timebut the provision was ultimately stripped from the final bill.

“It feels like every year we get all these rumors that there’s going to be a fix…and then during the spending bill negotiations, something has to get taken out at the eleventh hour and it’s always H-2B, and it’s always the returning worker exemption or the cap stuff,” Brownlee says. “‘We’ve got to keep things status quo, we don’t want to rock the boat.’ We always get left with the short end of the stick.”

H-2B visas bring workers where they’re needed, to the benefit of small businesses and both American and foreign workers. Along with other temporary work visas, they can help reduce the pressure of unauthorized migration along the U.S.-Mexico border. Despite its flaws, the H-2B program is essential for thousands of American businesses, especially small seasonal ones.

By failing to reform the pathway, policy makers are forcing businesses to forgo growth and provide service below their standards. “You feel like you’re pushing the stone up the hill constantly,” says Sain, “but you just never get it to the top.”

Entertainment

P Diddy: Everything you need to know about the Sean Combs trial

Published

2 hours ago

May 5, 2025

admin

P Diddy: Everything you need to know about the Sean Combs trial

Seven months after his high-profile arrest, the trial of hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs is set to get under way today.

A three-time Grammy winner and one of the most influential hip-hop producers of the past 30 years – also known variously as Puff Daddy, P Diddy and “Love” in the years since he rose to fame in the 1990s – the rapper and founder of Bad Boy Records is now facing serious criminal charges in the US, as well as several civil lawsuits.

He has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges, said his sexual relationships were consensual, and strenuously denied all allegations of wrongdoing.

Combs, 55, was arrested and charged in September 2024, six months after raids by federal agents on two of his properties in Los Angeles and Miami. He has been held in detention in New York since his arrest, having been refused bail as he awaits trial.

Jury selection is set to begin this morning and will potentially take several days. Opening statements by lawyers and the start of the testimony are expected to begin next week.

Here is everything you need to know.

What is Combs on trial for?

Combs is facing five felony charges:

• Racketeering conspiracy
• Two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion
• Two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution

The rapper was initially charged with three offences – racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. Two extra counts – one each of sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution – were added earlier in April.

Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Racketeering broadly means engaging in an illegal scheme or enterprise, and the charge falls under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act (RICO) in the US.

According to the US justice department’s definition of RICO statute, it is also illegal to “conspire to violate” the laws.

The indictment against Combs alleges that between 2008 and 2024, he “led a racketeering conspiracy that engaged in sex trafficking, forced labour, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice, among other crimes”, the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York said following his arrest in September.

Who are the accusers?

Prosecutors expect four accusers to testify against Combs during the criminal trial.

Three have requested their identities not be revealed to the press or the public and that they instead be referred to using only pseudonyms.

One accuser, who is referred to as Victim 1 in court documents, is prepared to testify under her own name, prosecutors have said.

When did allegations begin?

In November 2023, Combs’ former girlfriend, R’n’B star Cassie – full name Casandra Ventura – filed a civil lawsuit alleging she was trafficked, raped, plied with drugs and viciously beaten by the rapper on many occasions over the course of 10 years.

The lawsuit was settled the following day. Terms of the agreement were not made public but there was no admission of wrongdoing from Combs, and he issued a statement saying he “vehemently” denied the “offensive and outrageous” allegations.

Six months later, footage recorded at a hotel in Los Angeles in 2016 emerged, allegedly showing Combs hitting and kicking Cassie in a hallway.

Shortly afterwards, he released a video apology, saying his behaviour in the video was at a time when he had “hit rock bottom” but nonetheless was “inexcusable” and that he was “disgusted” with himself.

The rapper’s lawyers argue the footage was nothing more than a “glimpse into a complex but decade-long consensual relationship”.

Details of ‘freak offs’

The charges include details of alleged “freak offs” – described as “elaborate and produced sex performances that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often electronically recorded”.

He allegedly induced female victims and male sex workers into drug-fuelled sexual performances, according to the indictment.

Prosecutors allege victims were given controlled substances during the sometimes days-long events to keep them “obedient and compliant” and Combs subjected them to “physical, emotional, and verbal abuse” to get them to engage.

The indictment also alleges Combs “engaged in acts of violence, threats of violence, threats of financial and reputational harm, and verbal abuse” including kidnapping and arson when witnesses of his alleged abuse threatened his authority or reputation.

What happens first?

The hearing is set to begin with jury selection at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York in Lower Manhattan.

After the two additional charges were added, Combs’ legal team requested a delay of two months, saying they needed more time to prepare his defence. However, Judge Arun Subramanian, who will hear the trial, denied the request, saying it had been made too close to the start date.

So, the trial will go ahead as planned, starting with jury selection. This is currently scheduled to take a week, but as a high-profile case, this process may be complicated and take some time.

If jury selection goes to plan, the opening statements from the prosecution and defence are set to begin on Monday 12 May.

Lawyers for Combs have requested for potential jurors to be asked about their views regarding sex, drugs, alcohol, and violence in a questionnaire.

In a letter submitted to the judge, the rapper’s legal team said: “Because this trial involves content that is sensitive and private in nature, many individuals are uncomfortable speaking about these issues in front of others and would be more candid writing about them in a questionnaire.”

Examples of areas “requiring inquiry” are potential connections to “drug or alcohol abuse… domestic violence, their willingness to watch videos with physical assault and videos that are sexually explicit, and their views towards people with multiple sexual partners”, they said.

They also want potential jurors to say if they have watched documentaries released about Combs since the charges were announced.

Prosecutors criticised the defence’s proposed questionnaire – with 72 questions – as too long and touching on subjects that would be better asked in person by the judge, if at all.

What has Combs said?

The rapper has strongly denied all the allegations against him.

Following his initial court appearance in September, one of his lawyers, Marc Agnifilo, said the rapper would “fight this to the end,” that he was “not afraid” of the charges, and was “looking forward to clearing his name”.

“Eventually he’s going to be shown to be innocent,” Mr Agnifilo said.

In a document submitted in February, Combs’ legal team argued for the transportation charge to be dismissed, saying he had been subject to a “racist” prosecution “for conduct that regularly goes unpunished”, and that he was being “singled out” as “a powerful black man” over the use of escorts.

They argued that “no white person” had ever “been the target of a remotely similar prosecution” and said that while the rapper had “complicated relationships with significant others as well as with alcohol and drugs… that doesn’t make him a racketeer, or a sex trafficker”.

Are the criminal charges separate to the lawsuits?

Yes. Combs has also been hit with dozens of civil claims – a few filed before the criminal charges were announced, but the majority afterwards.

These include accusations of sexual abuse by men and women, from alleged victims who were as young as 10 at the time of the alleged incidents.

Many of these have been filed by Texas lawyer Tony Buzbee, whom Combs’ team have accused of seeking publicity.

One particularly high-profile lawsuit, involving rapper Jay-Z as well as Combs, was voluntarily dropped with prejudice, meaning it cannot be brought again, by the accuser in February.

Another lawsuit accuses Combs of raping a woman as alleged payback for her saying she believed he was involved in the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur. Combs is suing the lawyer involved in this case for defamation, over other allegations that have been made against him.

What sentence does Combs face?

The US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York announced details of potential sentences when Combs was charged, but said the decision would ultimately be determined by the judge.

Racketeering conspiracy carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, the attorney’s office said, as does sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion – which also carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.

The charge of transportation for purposes of prostitution carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Sports

This time at UCF, Scott Frost won’t need to catch lightning in a bottle

Published

2 hours ago

May 5, 2025

admin

This time at UCF, Scott Frost won't need to catch lightning in a bottle

Andrea AdelsonMay 3, 2025, 09:58 AM ET
Close
- ACC reporter.
- Joined ESPN.com in 2010.
- Graduate of the University of Florida.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Scott Frost walks into the UCF football building and into his office, the one he used the last time he had this job, eight years ago. The shades are drawn, just like they used to be. There are drawings from his three kids tacked to the walls. There are still trophies sitting on a shelf.

He still parks in the same spot before he walks into that same building and sits at the same desk. The only thing that has changed is that the desk is positioned in a different part of the room.

But the man doing all the same things at the University of Central Florida is a different Scott Frost than the one who left following that undefeated 2017 season to take the head coach job at Nebraska.

UCF might look the same, but the school is different now, too. The Knights are now in a Power 4 conference, and there is now a 12-team College Football Playoff that affords them the opportunity to play for national championships — as opposed to self-declaring them. Just outside his office, construction is underway to upgrade the football stadium. The same, but different.

“I know I’m a wiser person and smarter football coach,” Frost said during a sit-down interview with ESPN. “When you’re young, you think you have it all figured out. I don’t think you really get better as a person unless you go through really good things, and really bad things. I just know I’m where I’m supposed to be.”

Out on the practice field, Frost feels the most at home — he feels comfort in going back to the place that has defined nearly every day of his life. As a young boy, he learned the game from his mom and dad, both football coaches, then thrived as a college and NFL player before going into coaching.

He coaches up his players with a straightforwardness that quarterbacks coach McKenzie Milton remembers fondly from their previous time together at UCF. Milton started at quarterback on the 2017 undefeated team, and the two remained close after Frost left.

“I see the same version of him from when I was here as a player,” Milton said. “Even though the dynamic in college football has changed dramatically with the portal and NIL, I think Coach Frost is one of the few coaches that can still bring a group of guys together and turn them into a team, just with who he is and what he’s done and what he’s been through in his life. He knows what it looks like to succeed, both as a coach and a player.”

Since his return, Frost has had to adjust to those changes to college football, but he said, “I love coming into work every day. We’ve got the right kids who love football. We’re working them hard. They want to be pushed. They want to be challenged. We get to practice with palm trees and sunshine and, we’re playing big-time football. But it’s also just not the constant stress meat grinder of some other places.”

Meat grinder of some other places.

Might he mean a place such as Nebraska?

“You can think what you want,” Frost said. “One thing I told myself — I’m never going to talk about that. It just doesn’t feel good to talk about. I’ll get asked 100 questions. This is about UCF. I just don’t have anything to say.”

Frost says he has no regrets about leaving UCF, even though he didn’t get the results he had hoped for at his alma mater. When Nebraska decided to part ways with coach Mike Riley in 2017, Frost seemed the best, most obvious candidate to replace him. He had been the starting quarterback on the 1997 team, the last Nebraska team to win a national title.

He now had the coaching résumé to match. Frost had done the unthinkable at UCF — taking a program that was winless the season before he arrived, to undefeated and the talk of the college football world just two years later.

But he could not ignore the pull of Nebraska and the opportunities that came along with power conference football.

“I was so happy here,” Frost said. “We went undefeated and didn’t get a chance to win a championship, at least on the field. You are always striving to reach higher goals. I had always told myself I wasn’t going to leave here unless there was a place that you can legitimately go and win a national championship. It was a tough decision because I didn’t want to leave regardless of which place it was.”

Indeed, Frost maintains he was always happy at UCF. But he also knew returning to Nebraska would make others happy, too.

“I think I kind of knew that wasn’t best for me,” he said. “It was what some other people wanted me to do to some degree.”

In four-plus seasons with the Cornhuskers, Frost went 16-31 — including 5-22 in one-score games. He was fired three games into the 2022 season after a home loss to Georgia Southern.

After Frost was fired, he moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, where his wife has family. He reflected on what happened during his tenure with the Cornhuskers but also about what he wanted to do with the rest of his career. He tried to stay connected to the game, coaching in the U.S. Army Bowl, a high school all-star game in Frisco, Texas, in December 2022. Milton coached alongside him, and distinctly remembers a conversation they had.

“He said, ‘It’s my goal to get back to UCF one day,'” Milton said. “At that time, I was like, ‘I pray to God that happens.'”

If that was the ultimate goal, Frost needed to figure out how to position himself to get back there. While he contemplated his future, he coached his son’s flag football team to a championship. Frost found the 5- and 6-year-olds he coached “listen better than 19-year-olds sometimes.”

Ultimately, he decided on a career reboot in the NFL. Frost had visited the Rams during their offseason program, and when a job came open in summer 2024, Rams coach Sean McVay immediately reached out.

Frost was hired as a senior analyst, primarily helping with special teams but also working with offense and defense.

“It was more just getting another great leader in the building, someone who has been a head coach, that has wisdom and a wealth of experience to be able to learn from,” McVay told ESPN. “His ability to be able to communicate to our players from a great coaching perspective, but also have the empathy and the understanding from when he played — all of those things were really valuable.”

McVay said he and Frost had long discussions about handling the challenges that come with falling short as a head coach.

“There’s strength in the vulnerability,” McVay said. “I felt that from him. There’s a real power in the perspective that you have from those different experiences. If you can really look at some of the things that maybe didn’t go down the way you wanted to within the framework of your role and responsibility, real growth can occur. I saw that in him.”

Frost says his time with the Rams rejuvenated him.

“It brought me back,” Frost said. “Sometimes when you’re a head coach or maybe even a coordinator, you forget how fun it is to be around the game when it’s not all on you all the time. What I did was a very small part, and we certainly weren’t going to win or lose based on every move that I made, and I didn’t have to wear the losses and struggle for the victories like you do when you’re a head coach. I’m so grateful to those guys.”

UCF athletics director Terry Mohajir got a call from then-head coach Gus Malzahn last November. Malzahn, on the verge of finishing his fourth season at UCF, was contemplating becoming offensive coordinator at Florida State. Given all the responsibilities on his desk as head coach — from NIL to the transfer portal to roster management — he found the idea of going back to playcalling appealing. Mohajir started preparing a list of candidates and was told Thanksgiving night that Malzahn had planned to step down.

Though Frost previously worked at UCF under athletics director Danny White, he and Mohajir had a preexisting relationship. Mohajir said he reached out to Frost after he was fired at Nebraska to gauge his interest in returning to UCF as offensive coordinator under Malzahn. But Frost was not ready.

This time around, Mohajir learned quickly that Frost had interest in returning as head coach. Mohajir called McVay and Rams general manager Les Snead. They told him Frost did anything that was asked of him, including making copies around the office.

“They said, ‘You would never know he was the head coach at a major college program.” Mohajir also called former Nebraska athletic director Trev Alberts to get a better understanding about what happened with the Cornhuskers.

“Fits are a huge piece, and not everybody fits,” Mohajir said.

After eight conversations, Mohajir decided he wanted to meet Frost in person. They met at an airport hotel in Dallas.

“He was motivated,” Mohajir said. “We went from coast to coast, talked to coordinators, head coaches, pro guys, all kinds of different folks. And at the end of the day, I really believe that Scott wanted the job the most.”

The first day back in Orlando, Dec. 8, was a blur. Frost woke up at 3:45 a.m. in California to be able to make it to Florida in time for his introductory news conference with his family.

When they pulled into the campus, his first time back since he left in 2017, Frost said he was in a fog. It took another 24 hours for him and his wife, Ashley, to take a deep exhale.

“Rather than bouncing around chasing NFL jobs, we thought maybe we would be able to plant some roots here and have our kids be in a stable place for a while at a place that I really enjoyed coaching and that I think it has a chance to evolve into a place that could win a lot of football games,” Frost said. “All that together was just enough to get me to come back.”

The natural question now is whether Frost can do what he did during his first tenure.

That 2017 season stands as the only winning season of his head coaching career, but it carries so much weight with UCF fans because of its significance as both the best season in school history, and one that changed both its own future and college football.

After UCF finished 13-0, White self-declared the Knights national champions. Locked out of the four-team playoff after finishing No. 12 in the final CFP standings, White started lobbying for more attention to be paid to schools outside the power conferences.

That season also positioned UCF to pounce during the next wave of realignment. Sure enough, in 2023, the Knights began play in a Power 4 conference for the first time as Big 12 members. This past season, the CFP expanded to 12 teams. Unlike 2017, UCF now has a defined path to play for a national title and no longer has to go undefeated and then pray for a shot. Win the Big 12 championship, no matter the record, and UCF is in the playoff.

But Frost cautions those who expect the clock to turn back to 2017.

“I don’t think there’s many people out there that silly,” Frost said. “People joke about that with me, that they’re going to expect you go into undefeated in the first year. I think the fans are a little more realistic than that.”

The game, of course, is different. Had the transfer portal and NIL existed when Frost was at UCF during his first tenure, he might not have been able to keep the 2017 team together. The 2018 team, which went undefeated under Josh Heupel before losing to LSU in the Fiesta Bowl, might not have stayed together, either.

This upcoming season, UCF will receive a full share of television revenue from the Big 12, after receiving a half share (estimated $18 million) in each of his first two seasons. While that is more than what it received in the AAC, it is less than what other Big 12 schools received, making it harder to compete immediately. It also struggled with NIL funding. As a result, in its first two years in the conference, UCF went 5-13 in Big 12 play and 10-15 overall.

Assuming the House v. NCAA settlement goes into effect this summer, Mohajir says UCF is aiming to spend the full $20.5 million, including fully funding football.

“It’s like we moved to the fancy neighborhood, and we got a job that’s going to pay us money over time, and we’re going to do well over time, but we’re stretching a little to be there right now, and that requires a lot of effort from a lot of people and a lot of commitment from a lot of people,” Frost said. “So far, the help that we’ve gotten has been impressive.”

Mohajir points out that UCF has had five coaching changes over the past 10 years, dating back to the final season under George O’Leary in 2015, when the Knights went 0-12. Frost says he wants to be in for the long term, and Mohajir hopes consistency at head coach will be an added benefit. Mohajir believes UCF is getting the best of Frost in this moment and scoffs at any questions about whether rehiring him will work again.

“Based on what I’m seeing right now, it will absolutely work,” Mohajir said. “But I don’t really look at it as ‘working again.’ It’s not ‘again.’ It’s, ‘Will it work?’ Because it’s a different era.”

To that end, Frost says success is not recreating 2017 and going undefeated. Rather, Frost said, “If our group now can help us become competitive in the Big 12, and then, from time to time, compete for championships and make us more relevant nationally, I think we’ll have done our job to help catapult UCF again.”

You could say he is looking for the same result. He’s just taking a different route there.

Sports

Ex-Cougar Haulcy, top transfer safety, picks LSU

Published

2 hours ago

May 5, 2025

admin

Ex-Cougar Haulcy, top transfer safety, picks LSU

Max OlsonMay 4, 2025, 11:06 PM ET
Close
- Covers the Big 12
- Joined ESPN in 2012
- Graduate of the University of Nebraska

Houston transfer safety A.J. Haulcy committed to LSU on Sunday, his agency, A&P Sports, told ESPN.

Haulcy, the top player still available and No. 1 safety in ESPN’s spring transfer portal rankings, committed to the Tigers after taking an official visit Sunday. Miami, Ole Miss and SMU were also contenders for his pledge.

The 6-foot, 215-pound senior defensive back has started 32 games over his three college seasons and earned first-team All-Big 12 honors in 2024 after producing 74 tackles, 8 pass breakups and 5 interceptions, which tied for most in the conference.

LSU has assembled one of the top incoming transfer classes in the country this offseason with 18 signees, including six players — wide receivers Barion Brown (Kentucky) and Nic Anderson (Oklahoma), linemen Braelin Moore (Virginia Tech) and Josh Thompson (Northwestern), cornerback Mansoor Delane (Virginia Tech) and defensive end Patrick Payton (LSU) — who ranked among the top 60 in ESPN’s winter transfer rankings.

The Tigers also landed USF transfer Bernard Gooden, one of the most coveted defensive tackles in the spring transfer window.

Haulcy began his career at New Mexico in 2022, earning a starting role as a true freshman and recording 87 tackles, including a career-high 24 against Fresno State, and two interceptions. The Houston native entered the transfer portal at the end of the season and came home to play for the Cougars.

As a sophomore in 2023, Haulcy recorded a team-high 98 tackles and received votes for Big 12 Defensive Newcomer of the Year from the league’s coaches.

Haulcy chose to re-enter the portal April 21 after Houston’s spring game, as did starting cornerback Jeremiah Wilson, who’ll continue his career at Florida State. Wilson and Haulcy were the Nos. 11 and 12 players, respectively, in ESPN’s spring transfer rankings.