SAD NEWS: Oklahoma Sooners head coach has been fired after three seasons of….

As Oklahoma coach Brent Venables was finishing up his postgame press conference Saturday night following the Sooners’ 33-3 victory over Kent State, this week’s opponent was mere seconds away from losing its head coach.

Nebraska reportedly fired Scott Frost on Sunday morning, putting assistant coach Mickey Joseph in the Cornhuskers’ interim big chair for this week’s game against the Sooners.

“Earlier today, I met with Coach Frost and informed him we were making a change in the leadership of our football program, effective immediately,” athletic director Trev Alberts said Sunday in a statement. “Scott has poured his heart and soul into the Nebraska football program both as a quarterback and head coach, and I appreciate his work and dedication

The Huskers were behind 45-42 with one second left and lining up for a potential game-tying field as Venables finished his final answer Saturday. He watched the leadup to the final play on a reporter’s laptop before being handed a cell phone, leaving the interview room and watching it in the hallway.

OU and Nebraska play at 11 a.m. Saturday at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln. The game will be carried by FOX

The Huskers are 1-2 after a Week 0 loss to Northwestern in Ireland, a tight victory over FCS opponent North Dakota, and Saturday’s shocker against Georgia Southern.

Nebraska apparently will pay the full remainder of Frost’s contract, which amounted to $15 million if he was fired without cause before Oct. 1. If the school had waited until Oct. 2, it would have owed him just $7.5 million. That speaks to Alberts and the administration’s desperation.

After the disappointing start to our season, I decided the best path forward for our program was to make a change in our head coaching position,” Albert said. “Associate Head Coach Mickey Joseph will serve as our interim head coach for the remainder of the 2022 season.”

But Frost’s fate wasn’t entirely due to this year’s slow start.

He didn’t.

At UCF, Frost earned national coach of the year accolades after leading the Knights to a 13-0 mark in 2017. That included then-athletic director Danny White and others declaring UCF the national champs.

He took over in Orlando after a 0-12 season and guided them to a 6-7 turnaround in 2016.

Frost, 47, rose quickly in the assistant coaching ranks as he helped fuel the Oregon Ducks to the inaugural College Football Playoff National Championship Game in 2014 as the team’s offensive coordinator. He worked for both Chip Kelly and Mark Helfrich, the latter as offensive coordinator in 2013 and ’14.

have anything close to a winning record in his first four seasons, as Nebraska went 4-8, 5-7, 3-5 and 3-9 after returning to his alma mater from Central Florida.

Frost’s first full-time paid job was as the linebackers coach at FCS Northern Iowa, where in 2008 he took over as defensive coordinator.

Frost, a native of Lincoln, began his college career as a quarterback at Stanford, then transferred to Nebraska in 1995. He redshirted that year, then took over as the Cornhuskers’ starter in 1996 and directed the Big Red to a 24-2 record. That included a 13-0 mark and the national championship in 1997, as Frost threw for 1,237 yards rushed for 1,095 yards and combined for 24 touchdowns.

After such a poor mark in his first four seasons, this year’s Nebraska team actually came into the 2022 season with a little bit of hype.

The Huskers have lost 10 consecutive one-score games and supplemented this year’s returners with a ton of newcomers via the transfer portal. It was expected they would at least compete for a bowl game, but that began to fade after the loss to Northwestern in Dublin on Aug. 27. The collapse was complete as the Huskers’ final field goal sailed wide right.