Blackshirt_Revival

Once again, the situations and expectations at each program were and are completely different. Stating that Leach took a dip in year 3 of his tenure at Washington State as some sort of evidence that Moos might or should retain Riley at Nebraska simply because he happened to be the AD there at the time is a spectacular reach at best Moos hired Mike Leach, for one, so had a vested interest in his success, and their program improved under him the first 2 years of his tenure. In spite of a dip in year 3 (which still had the team performing at least at or still above the level they had under the previous coach), he has improved since, and evidence existed he would do so, thus the continued faith Moos (correctly) had in Leach. It is a rare situation in that a coach had a setback in year 3 of his tenure (relative to what he had accomplished in years 1 and 2), but still ended up improving the team greatly in succeeding years. Mike Leach did, but once again, he also had greater success in his first 2 years there than the program had for many years prior. Comparing coaching records is fun, but Mike Riley won 43 conference games in his first 10 years at Oregon State to Mike Leach's 47. You're (conveniently?) excluding his first 2 years at the program, 1997-1998, where he won 2 conference games total. Mike Riley also had the benefit of playing one more conference game a year than Mike Leach did from years 6-10 in this specified 10 year window, so he played 5 more conference games than did Mike Leach. And then there is Mike Riley's 53% win percentage at Oregon State compared to Mike Leach's 66% win percentage at Texas Tech. Washington State has progressed substantially under Mike Leach, while Nebraska has regressed under Mike Riley. There really isn't much more to discuss here.

1. It's not about what expectations get the fans, it's about what meeting them or not meeting them gets the coach. Meeting expectations: more time, raises, prestige, etc. Not meeting expectations: scrutiny, hot seat talks, possibly fired. That's what is meant here by expectations 2. Outlier meaning trying to find some rare situation somewhere out there and presenting it as some equivalent situation as evidence that Moos might or should retain Riley, because Mike Leach went 3-9 his 3rd year at Washington State, which is not at all the same thing as RIley being 4-5 in year 3 at Nebraska because... 3. Washington State went 9-40 under their previous head coach in 4 years, 30-28 under their coach prior to that in his 5 years there, with his only winning season occuring in his first year which was 2003. Compare this to Nebraska who went 67-27 in 7 years under their previous head coach (no defense of Bo, mind you), which leads to 4. The fact that Leach had a history of making teams consistent winners and competing for conference titles, where Riley has not, and in spite of his bad year there, still had the Cougars performing at a level in year 3 that was at least on-par to where they had before. I see one that trended up, and one that is very clearly trending down with no logical indication at all it will reverse course.

You're replying to HuskerMan as if he is the one suggesting these shirts be made, like the idea for creating them is originating with him...it isn't, the shirts already exist. It seems he is literally asking who is selling the shirts on the Facebook Marketplace. Granted, I'm sure realizing the shirts actually exist might be even worse to you, but it seems the venom here is a bit misplaced.

I must admit, I didn't consider Dan Mullen before this suggestion, but do think he'd be a great hire for us.

A run first offensive identity, with an emphasis on power where the QB is a threat to both run and pass, with a healthy amount of option sprinkled in, is the way we need to go, IMHO. Imagine Stanford, Michigan, or Wisconsin's offense if paired with a dual-threat QB with sufficient passing and running abilities, where option plays (be it zone read or under center out of I-formation, whatever) constituted a healthy portion of the offense. The best example that comes to mind for me is Wisconsin's offense when Russell Wilson was there. I realize Wilson is an elite QB, but just using that for reference of the sort of style I think would suit us best. Granted they've only played 2 games, but D.J. Durkin's offense at Maryland so far this year has looked very much like the kind of offense I think would suit us and do well here. Regardless of scheme, the O-Line play needs to be physical, mean, and nasty.

In order of preference: 1. Scott Frost 2. Chip Kelly 3. Troy Calhoun 4. D.J. Durkin 5. Craig Bohl I see a lot of coaches listed here who are big names and have been successful who I don't think would be good long term solutions at Nebraska, chiefly because of the offensive styles they employ not matching up with the players we have greatest access to and Nebraska's built-in recruiting disadvantages. In our most successful years, we ran an offense that embraced and maximized the abilities of the talent we had greatest access to. I think a coach is needed who employs a run-first offensive mentality with a physical, brutal O-line (yes, I realize me having Kelly at 2 seems contradictory to that), where the QB is also a fixture in the run game. Nebraska will never consistently out-recruit schools like USC, Miami, Texas, and Alabama, but with the right coach(es), right scheme, and right values/mentality, I don't think it needs to in order to have sustained success. Frost #1 because I think he understands what he'd be walking into here--the expectations, what it would take to be successful. I think he understands the pressure the job would bring, and I think fans would be more patient with the homegrown kid who was a national championship winning QB here and still early into his coaching career than a more established coach we would expect to win big and right away. Plus this right here shows me he GETS IT: “I’ve actually been going to work trying to restudy what we used to do at Nebraska. . . . [W]hat we ran at Nebraska in a lot of ways is very similar to what Oregon runs right now — we’re just out of the shotgun versus under center. But a lot of the concepts of the option game are the same. . . . I would love to see somebody go back to doing what Nebraska used to do. Maybe the Huskers are going to do that this year. Personally, I’d love to someday mix a lot of the concepts that Oregon runs with some of the aspects Nebraska used to run. . . . The one thing I wish we could do at Oregon is be a little more physical. I don’t think that’s a secret. I think everybody on our staff wishes we could be a little more physical on offense. That’s what Nebraska’s calling card was. If we could play fast and physical, I don’t think there’s anybody in the country who could stop us.” http://smartfootball.com/uncategorized/combining-tom-osbornes-nebraska-offense-with-chip-kellys-oregon-offense-the-stuff-dreams-are-made-of#sthash.qJ3zSLh6.dpbs

So the walkons have no talent? Are you saying Janovish isn't more talented than a lot of scholarship players on other teams? Silly statement. "End of story" makes it even more comical/ There are always exceptions. Walkons have talent. But do they have enough talent to win a championship? Win against teams like Ohio State or Alabama? If you haven't noticed the teams that recruit top classes every year are the ones winning championships. How many of the 97 team who had at least one start were from Nebraska? I believe 9 or 10 of the 11 regular offensive starters were from Nebraska. I'm not sure how many walk-ons in particular started at any point during that season, but I did find this: https://sites.google.com/site/nebraskafootballhistory/walk-ons-page-5 Bear in mind that many of those who had become scholarship players by that point also started their careers as walk-ons. So, anyways, from Nebraska, a very high amount, in addition to many of the contributors being walk-ons or starting their careers as walk-ons. (Yes, I realize things are different today and it is a bit more difficult to implement such a system today than it was then. Simply trying to help answer Joe's question).

The talent or lack thereof on this team is one thing, but I thought one of the big points of praise for Riley was his ability to maximize talent and get the most of the teams he coached? Riley himself even made comments that this was one of the more talented teams he had coached, and that the team was particularly deep in talent on both the offensive and defensive lines. Do these comments now amount to platitudes? The comments about working in their system and tailoring it to the talent we had on the team, do those amount to platitudes as well? Bottom line is Riley took over a program that won 9 games the year before. Nobody in the local or national media, nobody on this site or any message board I'm aware of, and no Husker fan I know in real life predicted this team to be this poor right now. So what is the issue? Could it be coaching? Maybe the issue is this staff is not at all a fit for Nebraska or right for the job. Maybe if talent matching such a different scheme is such an issue, we should have brought in a coach who ran a scheme that did match the talent we had on hand, or was legitimately interested and able to tailor schemes to fit that talent, and/or didn't try forcing a square peg in a round hole so much. There is no evidence to suggest Riley can or will have success here, and we have decades of evidence to utilize for this conclusion (beyond that, the man is 62 years old). While we don't have a lot of examples (of a coach taking over a solid winning team after a firing or non-retirement related resignation), there are literally no examples to my knowledge of a coach doing substantially worse than his predecessor in his first year and then going on to have a successful tenure at that school. If you were to objectively look at the coaching hires made this past offseason, which would you had said was the biggest head-scratcher and had the highest probability of failure? If that seems too daunting or difficult a question to answer at this point, simply look objectively at the coaching carousel between us, Oregon State, Wisconsin, and Pitt and tell me who do you think pulled the shortest straw? When I see teams like Navy, Air Force, Memphis, Temple, Kansas State, and Pitt who I don't feel are more talented than us, but I think would beat us, that whole lack of talent thing kind of goes right out the window. I think Nebraska fans have a right to be concerned and even outraged. I really think we are looking at a very small window of time to get this train back on track before it goes completely off the rails. We haven't won a conference championship since 1999. There are literally 2 generations of fans who have little or no memory of Nebraska ever being a very good team. Think what we may now, but I personally believe Nebraska is much closer to Minnesota, circa 1978 than it is to Alabama, circa 2008.

What I get a lot down in Kansas (from JAYHAWK fans, nonetheless) is "back when Nebraska had a football team" (not just this year, in prior years as well). Of course I reply with "at least we had one." K-State fans are, in my experience, sincerely more knowledgeable, sympathetic, and honestly more appreciative of Nebraska and its program than most Jayhawk fans.

Thanks for an outside perspective, Michiganball!

Would this be the one? http://www.oregonlive.com/collegefootball/index.ssf/2015/11/thursday_morning_news_notes_li_27.html And yes, I have also noticed as much from many Oregon State fans on their forums, even going back months ago. But like I said, I'm trying to remain as impartial as possible in this thread.

Since we Husker fans have been at each other's throats on this board for the past few weeks, I am really curious to hear what some of the members of the board who are from fanbases outside of Husker nation think about situation NU finds itself in today. I got to thinking about this topic more after a great conversation I had with a co-worker who is a big time OU fan and grew up in Oklahoma (he misses our old rivalry dearly). I realize there are probably some Husker fans on here who couldn't care less about what a fan of another team thinks about ours, and I'm sure many of the members who are fans of other teams perhaps haven't been paying close enough attention to NU to really offer a strong opinion one way or another, but I (and I think many fans here) would be interested to hear some thoughts from an outside perspective after beating up on each other now for so long, and would appreciate the insight. I'm going to try to prevent injecting my opinion here, as I'm not interested at all in influencing the opinions of others who may respond to this or reinforcing mine, but for a brief synopsis of what's happening with Nebraska today: *Mike Riley, our first year coach, currently has Nebraska sitting at 3-6 *Many fans are upset with this, and with Riley, our AD, and Chancellor *Many feel that Riley needs to be give more time to recruit to his system and develop players, as we don't quite have the players to match his system, have been thin at several positions, and have sustained many injuries *Many feel Riley is dealing with the results of a toxic culture left behind by his predecessor, Bo Pelini *Many feel Riley took over the reins of a 9-4 program and has them playing substantially worse football *AD Shawn Eichorst comes out with a letter of support for Mike Riley early in the week after a 55-45 loss to Purdue *Chancellor Harvey Perlman publicly states his support for Shawn Eichorst as Nebraska's AD, and speaks about extending his contract *Many think our AD's letter of support was an embarrassing "kiss of death," and think extending our AD's contract is a ludicrous idea *Many think the AD's letter of support shows a strong commitment from our AD to his coach, and think extending our AD's contract would lead to greater stability within our program *Many think Mike Riley is the wrong hire for Nebraska, will never win us a conference championship, and needs to be let go immediately (along with possibly our AD), or else our program will be set back even further *Many think we need to be patient with Coach Riley and our AD, that the process will take time, and any drastic moves at this point will set our program back even further I realize there are specifics I have left out or skipped over, but if one wants/needs a deeper analysis or outlook, I'm sure you can find this in the many threads we currently have up on this board. I know for a fact we have very knowledgeable Fighting Irish fans, Buckeyes, Spartans, Wolverines, Badgers, Gophers, Wildcats (KSU and Northwestern), Tigers (Missouri and Clemson), Cyclones, Sooners, Cowboys (Wyoming and Okie State), Buffaloes, Aggies, and even Beavers now (and surely more I missed) who chime in on this board from time to time. I'm quite curious to see what they think about the state of Nebraska football today. Is Riley the right guy for the job? What do you think about the actions of our AD and Chancellor? Are fans justified in being angry and/or wanting them gone, or completely insane? Would we be setting ourselves up for disaster getting rid of them so soon? Are we setting ourselves up for failure by keeping them around any longer? Should we exercise more patience? What should the expectations be at Nebraska? What do you think Nebraska should do or needs to do to meet these expectations? No need to answer every single question, but just interested in getting a bit more of an outside perspective. And while I can't dictate who can or can't post in this thread, this is directed at those members from outside fanbases; we have about a million other threads to duke it out amongst ourselves in. Thanks a lot!

Haha! End thread. He was #3 earlier today before being fired. You're looking at the expanded rating list. I'm not sure why he is still showing up at #60 on there, but he was indeed #3 earlier today before being removed from the top 30 list altogether after his firing (the guys at the top of the page with the accompanying photos). As a result everyone but Riley and Richt moved up on the list, and Kingsbury earned a spot in the top 30.

That would be why he posted it in RUMORVILLE, and he is professing it to be nothing more than that, a rumor. It's clear you're not bashing the post, you're employing a 'worthiness/belonging clause' (basically a form of 'poisoning the well' ad hominem) to bash the poster, as you have done in nearly every post you have made on this board in the past couple of weeks, trying to somehow trumpet your apparent worthiness or belonging to some Huskerboard social stratosphere via your post count, and how this makes you some authority figure on a message board, while demeaning/writing off those with less. There are obviously posters who make great contributions to this board who have a high post count, and they usually are the ones most likely to make the most meaningful contributions to this board. However, there are also posters with high post counts who do little to make meaningful contributions to this board and offer next to nothing in quality thoughts and discussion, just as there are posters who do not have many posts who offer very quality thoughts and discussion, and meaningful contributions, while less numerous. I'm trying to wrap my mind around what you just said and how it is relevant to anything Baker just said. "Personally, I like when new posters start threads and stick their necks out with bold rumors. I like the title, "Mike Riley is Done" ... like it's a fact ... then the rumor is stated with a "solid" reference to a prior situation." Ya I know what he said. I'm just not sure why you are so mad about it. I'm not seeing anything in there that warrants such an emotional response that you gave... Edit: I guess I haven't really paid attn. to what he's been saying in previous posts the last couple weeks that you must have paid attn. to. In any case, in what I've noticed with post count is that generally if someone has been around here for a while and have a high post count they are generally pretty level headed unless you say something to piss them off or intentionally call them out. To me 1800 posts isn't all that much considering he joined in 2005. Hell. I don't consider myself to have a high post count at 3200 since 08. My point is, again in what I've noticed, is that if you are around a ton, your voice seems to get a little bit more attention...not clout, just attention. Everyone knows the tones of True, Zoogs, Saunders, Knapp, LOMS, etc.... Not everyone is accustomed to Blackshirt_Revival yet (Not that it matters in the first place)....maybe I'm off base but that's just an observation I have made the last couple years. I agree with this. In the same breath, being an active poster on a message board will never be as profound a part of the lives of many (or most) people as it is to some of the most prolific and solid contributors on this site. I understand this frequency is also part of what contributes to credibility (ie, rep point), and how this may cause some to exercise caution and pause with information or opinions expressed by those who do not contribute as much, but obviously there have been quality contributions made on this site from those with fewer post counts, just as I understand there has been plenty of garbage contributed by those with fewer post counts. I guess my point is, post count alone should not be and is not the sole determiner of the quality of post or poster or the ability to formulate a solid opinion, insight, or to share information. It is not reason enough alone to dismiss someone or what they might share. I think we can also all agree there is also plenty of nonsense posted on here daily from more frequent posters who are upping their post counts by contributing posts of little substance, as well.