Mike Riley's Recruiting Adventures and What Nebraska Fans Should Expect Moving Forward

[eightlaces]

What impact would you say that "negative fan reactions" had for Pelini when it came to recruiting?

Because if that's a valid excuse now, you can only imagine what it must have been like trying to recruit with people calling for your head after a 9 win season and a bowl win over Georgia... not to mention, almost no outward support from an administration.

I'm just trying to figure out where the goalposts are set.

Reality is, Riley will probably recruit about as well as his predecessor and the two coaches before that guy. This recruitnik parsing of a recruit here and there isn't really worth much.

It's going to come down to whether Riley and his staff can get a +2 to +4 wins out of talent that should consistently win 8 games a season (i.e., the level of talent NU has and will likely continue to bring in).

This year, they were at least -5 in my opinion.

1.) Pelini hated recruiting enough to hurt himself and always has, but that's beside the point. No one called for his firing until maybe four or five years into his tenure not four or five games into it

2.) Riley actually understands how to recruit much like Callahan did. You have to keep your recruiters responsible and he has some excellent young recruiters such as Bray and Williams.

Point 1 is pure fabrication both in terms of his view on recruiting and when people started bitching. Many didn't like to see Callahan go (some still post here) and never wanted pelini. As far as Riley goes, if any other coach had started like he did, people would have been upset too. As it stands, the timing is immaterial to my question about negative fans impacting recruiting.
Re: point 2, The argument that Callahan was a good recruiter is pure delusion. He landed some good players, like all NU coaches have, but mainly on the back of the shadiest recruiter at Nebraska in decades. Every NU staff has had great recruiting coaches. Bray and Williams are on par, but hardly exceed others. Where do you put Hughes, banker and the ST coach as pure recruiters? If you were honest, they would be behind every assistant at NU during at least the past 8 years.

Point one isn't fabrication. Happened at LSU, happened at Nebraska and is currently happening at Youngstown. He hates dealing with recruiting and what's worse, the proof is in the pudding.

Point two is not delusion, you just don't like Bill.

 

[eightlaces]

What impact would you say that "negative fan reactions" had for Pelini when it came to recruiting?

Because if that's a valid excuse now, you can only imagine what it must have been like trying to recruit with people calling for your head after a 9 win season and a bowl win over Georgia... not to mention, almost no outward support from an administration.

I'm just trying to figure out where the goalposts are set.

Reality is, Riley will probably recruit about as well as his predecessor and the two coaches before that guy. This recruitnik parsing of a recruit here and there isn't really worth much.

It's going to come down to whether Riley and his staff can get a +2 to +4 wins out of talent that should consistently win 8 games a season (i.e., the level of talent NU has and will likely continue to bring in).

This year, they were at least -5 in my opinion.

1.) Pelini hated recruiting enough to hurt himself and always has, but that's beside the point. No one called for his firing until maybe four or five years into his tenure not four or five games into it

2.) Riley actually understands how to recruit much like Callahan did. You have to keep your recruiters responsible and he has some excellent young recruiters such as Bray and Williams.

Regarding #1, at the risk of derailing the thread, the reason for the discrepancy between the five years for Pelini and five games for Riley is that (1) most people were pleased with Pelini was hired whereas people either said "Who?" or "Oh no, not the career .500 coach from Oregon State" when Riley was announced, and (2) Pelini took a 5-7 team and went 8-5, whereas Riley took a 9-3 team and went 5-7.

Regarding #2, what do you make of Hank Hughes, Bruce Read, and Mark Banker, three coaches who, if the reports are to be believed, do jack you-know-what on the recruiting trail? There is no doubt that Bray and Williams are the bright spots of an otherwise very "Meh" coaching staff, but having two guys who recruit their tails off while several others sit on their a$$ does not constitute "keeping one's recruiters responsible," IMO.

Good questions.

1.) You're correct and again, his status wasn't remotely in doubt until 2011 at the earliest.

2.) Hughes and Read are not guys I look to as stud recruiters. I'm not sure where you're hearing this stuff about Banker because the guy shows up just as much as anyone else. Is he THE closer? No, but he'll get his. Riley, Langs, Williams, Bray and Stewart are all good for quality recruits. You're not going to have an entire staff of stud recruiters. Fortunately, not only does Nebraska have assistants who can close, it has a support staff second to none.

 

[cm husker]

Youngstown has as many recruits at this point as it usually does and a 3 star, which is its first since at least 2012.

You shouldn't be allowed to rewrite history, let alone the present.

My assessment of Callahan has almost nothing to do with my personal dislike of his coaching styles and philosophies. Almost every objective measure demonstrates that he recruited no better than solich and pelini and managed a roster even worse.

 

[Elf]

What impact would you say that "negative fan reactions" had for Pelini when it came to recruiting?

Because if that's a valid excuse now, you can only imagine what it must have been like trying to recruit with people calling for your head after a 9 win season and a bowl win over Georgia... not to mention, almost no outward support from an administration.

I'm just trying to figure out where the goalposts are set.

Reality is, Riley will probably recruit about as well as his predecessor and the two coaches before that guy. This recruitnik parsing of a recruit here and there isn't really worth much.

It's going to come down to whether Riley and his staff can get a +2 to +4 wins out of talent that should consistently win 8 games a season (i.e., the level of talent NU has and will likely continue to bring in).

This year, they were at least -5 in my opinion.

1.) Pelini hated recruiting enough to hurt himself and always has, but that's beside the point. No one called for his firing until maybe four or five years into his tenure not four or five games into it

2.) Riley actually understands how to recruit much like Callahan did. You have to keep your recruiters responsible and he has some excellent young recruiters such as Bray and Williams.

Point 1 is pure fabrication both in terms of his view on recruiting and when people started bitching. Many didn't like to see Callahan go (some still post here) and never wanted pelini. As far as Riley goes, if any other coach had started like he did, people would have been upset too. As it stands, the timing is immaterial to my question about negative fans impacting recruiting.
Re: point 2, The argument that Callahan was a good recruiter is pure delusion. He landed some good players, like all NU coaches have, but mainly on the back of the shadiest recruiter at Nebraska in decades. Every NU staff has had great recruiting coaches. Bray and Williams are on par, but hardly exceed others. Where do you put Hughes, banker and the ST coach as pure recruiters? If you were honest, they would be behind every assistant at NU during at least the past 8 years.

I'm one of those that never wanted Bo Pelini. And if I had a time machine, I'd go back in time and warn Osborne about hiring him.

The one year he was Frank's defensive coordinator every loss we had was a bad one. 41-24 loss to Missouri, 31-7 advantage, Texas, and 38-9 vs Kansas frigging St. Defensive guru my a$$.

 

[Elf]

What impact would you say that "negative fan reactions" had for Pelini when it came to recruiting?

Because if that's a valid excuse now, you can only imagine what it must have been like trying to recruit with people calling for your head after a 9 win season and a bowl win over Georgia... not to mention, almost no outward support from an administration.

I'm just trying to figure out where the goalposts are set.

Reality is, Riley will probably recruit about as well as his predecessor and the two coaches before that guy. This recruitnik parsing of a recruit here and there isn't really worth much.

It's going to come down to whether Riley and his staff can get a +2 to +4 wins out of talent that should consistently win 8 games a season (i.e., the level of talent NU has and will likely continue to bring in).

This year, they were at least -5 in my opinion.

1.) Pelini hated recruiting enough to hurt himself and always has, but that's beside the point. No one called for his firing until maybe four or five years into his tenure not four or five games into it

2.) Riley actually understands how to recruit much like Callahan did. You have to keep your recruiters responsible and he has some excellent young recruiters such as Bray and Williams.

Regarding #1, at the risk of derailing the thread, the reason for the discrepancy between the five years for Pelini and five games for Riley is that (1) most people were pleased with Pelini was hired whereas people either said "Who?" or "Oh no, not the career .500 coach from Oregon State" when Riley was announced, and (2) Pelini took a 5-7 team and went 8-5, whereas Riley took a 9-3 team and went 5-7.

Regarding #2, what do you make of Hank Hughes, Bruce Read, and Mark Banker, three coaches who, if the reports are to be believed, do jack you-know-what on the recruiting trail? There is no doubt that Bray and Williams are the bright spots of an otherwise very "Meh" coaching staff, but having two guys who recruit their tails off while several others sit on their a$$ does not constitute "keeping one's recruiters responsible," IMO.

Maybe that is what happens when you hire an older staff - they see retirement in the near future. It is difficult to build a program around a coach who could easily be retiring in 5 years (if not forced out sooner). Recruits see that. They may question the long term commitment of the staff.

Thus, I think the AD blew it last year, (even though MR is a likable guy and all and the image change was needed - I get that). It is better to build around a young, hungry coach and his assistants who want to hit the recruiting trial hard and make the program great (and therefore improve their own status along the way). While Justin Fuente (sp?) did wonders at Memphis, he'll probably do even better long term at VT - because the school has tradition, resources and now a young coach to take them forward. Scott Frost will be successful at his new gig for the same reason. I remember Solich's assistants needing their butts kicked because they had gotten old and lazy - thus we end up wt Frank's 7-7 record in part due to recruiting.

I still hope and want & even believe that MR can succeed but as someone said - it isn't the Xs and the Os but the Joes that are needed to succeed - good players and lots of them.

Milt Tenopir got old, but he didn't get lazy. He had health issues that kept him from the recruiting trail as I recall.

 

[Hujan]

I truly fear all of the FIRE RILEY discussion that goes on around places like this will turn away the likes of Keyshawn and his crew. We have a bigger voice than we know.

That said, we do need a solid commit here soon before our class momentum completely dies. Hopefully once the dead period ends, we see an explosion and a strong finish.

I still, for the life of me, don't understand why people think the fan angst has such a big impact on recruiting separate and apart from the reason for the angst in the first place.

For one, as long as the stadium is full on game days, it is only relevant if one assumes that fan angst will translate into a coach's firing and we all know that ADs don't fire successful coaches just because the fans are in uproar (assuming fans would even be in uproar if the coach was successful, itself a dubious assumption).

Two, it unrealistically assumes that other programs experiencing similar problems are magically going to have much more patient, well-behaved fans than ours. But if you're read any other teams' message boards, you'd know that the angst is at best a wash and, more realistically, other teams' boards make Nebraska's message boards look like The Reading Rainbow. You think Texas, USC, LSU, or Alabama have less caustic boards than Nebraska? They will tar and feather their coaches if the margin of victory is not to their liking. Half of our fanbase would feel guilty about getting angry at Riley if he tortured dogs in his free time and would probably find a way to blame themselves for him doing it.

Blaming the message boards for paltry recruiting is at once a very arrogant and very self-loathing thing to say, IMO.

Forgetting that 18 year old kids who are highly touted have access to the internet is part of that line of thinking.

If they are considering school A and school B, jump on a social media website for both and randomly see positive thinking from one fan base but anger and loathing from the other, it could easily sway them the other way.

Our players see more of what we post on this message board than you think, why wouldn't a recruit come to anplace like this to see what the fans think?

I don't doubt recruits might peruse the boards. But the false predicate in your hypothetical is that our board will be more "negative" than the boards pertaining to the other 5-7 teams the recruit is also considering. I think that's really unlikely.

And if your answer is to point out the recruit might be comparing us to successful programs with positive boards, I would counter that (1) our relative negativity would be over shadowed by the reason for it (I.e., our comparatively poor record), and (2) that any recruit worth having should be able to see that comparing the attitudes of fans on a 10-2 team to those of a 5-7 team is very apples to oranges.

Unless we are supposed to act like over medicated, loopy Stepford fans with creepy plastic smiles in the face of objectively terrible coaching decisions, I don't find the content of the board all that surprising or abnormal and neither would a recruit comparing us to TCU.

 

[Hujan]

What impact would you say that "negative fan reactions" had for Pelini when it came to recruiting?

Because if that's a valid excuse now, you can only imagine what it must have been like trying to recruit with people calling for your head after a 9 win season and a bowl win over Georgia... not to mention, almost no outward support from an administration.

I'm just trying to figure out where the goalposts are set.

Reality is, Riley will probably recruit about as well as his predecessor and the two coaches before that guy. This recruitnik parsing of a recruit here and there isn't really worth much.

It's going to come down to whether Riley and his staff can get a +2 to +4 wins out of talent that should consistently win 8 games a season (i.e., the level of talent NU has and will likely continue to bring in).

This year, they were at least -5 in my opinion.

1.) Pelini hated recruiting enough to hurt himself and always has, but that's beside the point. No one called for his firing until maybe four or five years into his tenure not four or five games into it

2.) Riley actually understands how to recruit much like Callahan did. You have to keep your recruiters responsible and he has some excellent young recruiters such as Bray and Williams.

Regarding #1, at the risk of derailing the thread, the reason for the discrepancy between the five years for Pelini and five games for Riley is that (1) most people were pleased with Pelini was hired whereas people either said "Who?" or "Oh no, not the career .500 coach from Oregon State" when Riley was announced, and (2) Pelini took a 5-7 team and went 8-5, whereas Riley took a 9-3 team and went 5-7.

Regarding #2, what do you make of Hank Hughes, Bruce Read, and Mark Banker, three coaches who, if the reports are to be believed, do jack you-know-what on the recruiting trail? There is no doubt that Bray and Williams are the bright spots of an otherwise very "Meh" coaching staff, but having two guys who recruit their tails off while several others sit on their a$$ does not constitute "keeping one's recruiters responsible," IMO.

Good questions.

1.) You're correct and again, his status wasn't remotely in doubt until 2011 at the earliest.

2.) Hughes and Read are not guys I look to as stud recruiters. I'm not sure where you're hearing this stuff about Banker because the guy shows up just as much as anyone else. Is he THE closer? No, but he'll get his. Riley, Langs, Williams, Bray and Stewart are all good for quality recruits. You're not going to have an entire staff of stud recruiters. Fortunately, not only does Nebraska have assistants who can close, it has a support staff second to none.

Thanks for the responses. I guess my question as to at least Hughs and Read is are they doing ANYTHING to support recruiting and if not, can Nebraska afford to have two full-time assistants who aren't even "recruiters" let alone "stud recruiters."

 

[Redux]

I truly fear all of the FIRE RILEY discussion that goes on around places like this will turn away the likes of Keyshawn and his crew. We have a bigger voice than we know.

That said, we do need a solid commit here soon before our class momentum completely dies. Hopefully once the dead period ends, we see an explosion and a strong finish.

I still, for the life of me, don't understand why people think the fan angst has such a big impact on recruiting separate and apart from the reason for the angst in the first place.

For one, as long as the stadium is full on game days, it is only relevant if one assumes that fan angst will translate into a coach's firing and we all know that ADs don't fire successful coaches just because the fans are in uproar (assuming fans would even be in uproar if the coach was successful, itself a dubious assumption).

Two, it unrealistically assumes that other programs experiencing similar problems are magically going to have much more patient, well-behaved fans than ours. But if you're read any other teams' message boards, you'd know that the angst is at best a wash and, more realistically, other teams' boards make Nebraska's message boards look like The Reading Rainbow. You think Texas, USC, LSU, or Alabama have less caustic boards than Nebraska? They will tar and feather their coaches if the margin of victory is not to their liking. Half of our fanbase would feel guilty about getting angry at Riley if he tortured dogs in his free time and would probably find a way to blame themselves for him doing it.

Blaming the message boards for paltry recruiting is at once a very arrogant and very self-loathing thing to say, IMO.

Forgetting that 18 year old kids who are highly touted have access to the internet is part of that line of thinking.

If they are considering school A and school B, jump on a social media website for both and randomly see positive thinking from one fan base but anger and loathing from the other, it could easily sway them the other way.

Our players see more of what we post on this message board than you think, why wouldn't a recruit come to anplace like this to see what the fans think?

I don't doubt recruits might peruse the boards. But the false predicate in your hypothetical is that our board will be more "negative" than the boards pertaining to the other 5-7 teams the recruit is also considering. I think that's really unlikely.

And if your answer is to point out the recruit might be comparing us to successful programs with positive boards, I would counter that (1) our relative negativity would be over shadowed by the reason for it (I.e., our comparatively poor record), and (2) that any recruit worth having should be able to see that comparing the attitudes of fans on a 10-2 team to those of a 5-7 team is very apples to oranges.

Unless we are supposed to act like over medicated, loopy Stepford fans with creepy plastic smiles in the face of objectively terrible coaching decisions, I don't find the content of the board all that surprising or abnormal and neither would a recruit comparing us to TCU.

You are missing the point. All it takes it 1 nasty comment and it could completely change a kids mind on whether or not he wants to come here.

I'm not saying we should all pump sunshine, but some of the crap that gets posted here is exactly what would make me not want to play here if it were me.

 

[huskered17]

I could see Riley maybe not getting to many highly rated players at O St. Here he has the resources, he never had there. A recruiting class of 2* and low 3* players is not going to impress, the fan base. It's great he is on some of the top players, but he needs to land more than 1-2 of them. Bo maybe didn't like to recruit, but at least he had a winning program, while he was here. Sure we should have won 3-4 more games this year. I put that on the coaches shoulders. Some really bad play calling, late in games, he had the players to have a winning season. He still does.

Now I am ready to wait and see what he can do, with time to recruit the players he couldn't get at O St, that he should be able to get here. Didn't like the hire, but am still willing to wait a couple more years, unless there is a complete melt down next year. Good signing class or not, we will have Riley for at least two more years. We might as well get behind this staff.

GBR!!!

 

[Mavric]

I truly fear all of the FIRE RILEY discussion that goes on around places like this will turn away the likes of Keyshawn and his crew. We have a bigger voice than we know.

That said, we do need a solid commit here soon before our class momentum completely dies. Hopefully once the dead period ends, we see an explosion and a strong finish.

I still, for the life of me, don't understand why people think the fan angst has such a big impact on recruiting separate and apart from the reason for the angst in the first place.

For one, as long as the stadium is full on game days, it is only relevant if one assumes that fan angst will translate into a coach's firing and we all know that ADs don't fire successful coaches just because the fans are in uproar (assuming fans would even be in uproar if the coach was successful, itself a dubious assumption).

Two, it unrealistically assumes that other programs experiencing similar problems are magically going to have much more patient, well-behaved fans than ours. But if you're read any other teams' message boards, you'd know that the angst is at best a wash and, more realistically, other teams' boards make Nebraska's message boards look like The Reading Rainbow. You think Texas, USC, LSU, or Alabama have less caustic boards than Nebraska? They will tar and feather their coaches if the margin of victory is not to their liking. Half of our fanbase would feel guilty about getting angry at Riley if he tortured dogs in his free time and would probably find a way to blame themselves for him doing it.

Blaming the message boards for paltry recruiting is at once a very arrogant and very self-loathing thing to say, IMO.

Forgetting that 18 year old kids who are highly touted have access to the internet is part of that line of thinking.

If they are considering school A and school B, jump on a social media website for both and randomly see positive thinking from one fan base but anger and loathing from the other, it could easily sway them the other way.

Our players see more of what we post on this message board than you think, why wouldn't a recruit come to anplace like this to see what the fans think?

I don't doubt recruits might peruse the boards. But the false predicate in your hypothetical is that our board will be more "negative" than the boards pertaining to the other 5-7 teams the recruit is also considering. I think that's really unlikely.

And if your answer is to point out the recruit might be comparing us to successful programs with positive boards, I would counter that (1) our relative negativity would be over shadowed by the reason for it (I.e., our comparatively poor record), and (2) that any recruit worth having should be able to see that comparing the attitudes of fans on a 10-2 team to those of a 5-7 team is very apples to oranges.

Unless we are supposed to act like over medicated, loopy Stepford fans with creepy plastic smiles in the face of objectively terrible coaching decisions, I don't find the content of the board all that surprising or abnormal and neither would a recruit comparing us to TCU.

You are missing the point. All it takes it 1 nasty comment and it could completely change a kids mind on whether or not he wants to come here.

I'm not saying we should all pump sunshine, but some of the crap that gets posted here is exactly what would make me not want to play here if it were me.

If it only takes one nasty comment for them not to want to come here, they probably weren't coming anyway or wouldn't have lasted if they did.

 

[Redux]

I truly fear all of the FIRE RILEY discussion that goes on around places like this will turn away the likes of Keyshawn and his crew. We have a bigger voice than we know.

That said, we do need a solid commit here soon before our class momentum completely dies. Hopefully once the dead period ends, we see an explosion and a strong finish.

I still, for the life of me, don't understand why people think the fan angst has such a big impact on recruiting separate and apart from the reason for the angst in the first place.

For one, as long as the stadium is full on game days, it is only relevant if one assumes that fan angst will translate into a coach's firing and we all know that ADs don't fire successful coaches just because the fans are in uproar (assuming fans would even be in uproar if the coach was successful, itself a dubious assumption).

Two, it unrealistically assumes that other programs experiencing similar problems are magically going to have much more patient, well-behaved fans than ours. But if you're read any other teams' message boards, you'd know that the angst is at best a wash and, more realistically, other teams' boards make Nebraska's message boards look like The Reading Rainbow. You think Texas, USC, LSU, or Alabama have less caustic boards than Nebraska? They will tar and feather their coaches if the margin of victory is not to their liking. Half of our fanbase would feel guilty about getting angry at Riley if he tortured dogs in his free time and would probably find a way to blame themselves for him doing it.

Blaming the message boards for paltry recruiting is at once a very arrogant and very self-loathing thing to say, IMO.

Forgetting that 18 year old kids who are highly touted have access to the internet is part of that line of thinking.

If they are considering school A and school B, jump on a social media website for both and randomly see positive thinking from one fan base but anger and loathing from the other, it could easily sway them the other way.

Our players see more of what we post on this message board than you think, why wouldn't a recruit come to anplace like this to see what the fans think?

I don't doubt recruits might peruse the boards. But the false predicate in your hypothetical is that our board will be more "negative" than the boards pertaining to the other 5-7 teams the recruit is also considering. I think that's really unlikely.

And if your answer is to point out the recruit might be comparing us to successful programs with positive boards, I would counter that (1) our relative negativity would be over shadowed by the reason for it (I.e., our comparatively poor record), and (2) that any recruit worth having should be able to see that comparing the attitudes of fans on a 10-2 team to those of a 5-7 team is very apples to oranges.

Unless we are supposed to act like over medicated, loopy Stepford fans with creepy plastic smiles in the face of objectively terrible coaching decisions, I don't find the content of the board all that surprising or abnormal and neither would a recruit comparing us to TCU.

You are missing the point. All it takes it 1 nasty comment and it could completely change a kids mind on whether or not he wants to come here.

I'm not saying we should all pump sunshine, but some of the crap that gets posted here is exactly what would make me not want to play here if it were me.

If it only takes one nasty comment for them not to want to come here, they probably weren't coming anyway or wouldn't have lasted if they did.

Maybe, but why risk it?

We can keep throwing out the excuse of "Other fan bases are just as pissy and hostile on the internet as we are so it doesn't hurt recruiting" all we want, but it's BS. It's just a way to pretend we are still a special fan base while getting to say we should fire our coach 4 games into a season. Our fan base used to be an asset and not only in the stadium on game day.

 

[Husker Psycho]

I still, for the life of me, don't understand why people think the fan angst has such a big impact on recruiting separate and apart from the reason for the angst in the first place.

For one, as long as the stadium is full on game days, it is only relevant if one assumes that fan angst will translate into a coach's firing and we all know that ADs don't fire successful coaches just because the fans are in uproar (assuming fans would even be in uproar if the coach was successful, itself a dubious assumption).

Two, it unrealistically assumes that other programs experiencing similar problems are magically going to have much more patient, well-behaved fans than ours. But if you're read any other teams' message boards, you'd know that the angst is at best a wash and, more realistically, other teams' boards make Nebraska's message boards look like The Reading Rainbow. You think Texas, USC, LSU, or Alabama have less caustic boards than Nebraska? They will tar and feather their coaches if the margin of victory is not to their liking. Half of our fanbase would feel guilty about getting angry at Riley if he tortured dogs in his free time and would probably find a way to blame themselves for him doing it.

Blaming the message boards for paltry recruiting is at once a very arrogant and very self-loathing thing to say, IMO.

*****

 

[BigRedBuster]

I could see Riley maybe not getting to many highly rated players at O St. Here he has the resources, he never had there. A recruiting class of 2* and low 3* players is not going to impress, the fan base. It's great he is on some of the top players, but he needs to land more than 1-2 of them. Bo maybe didn't like to recruit, but at least he had a winning program, while he was here. Sure we should have won 3-4 more games this year. I put that on the coaches shoulders. Some really bad play calling, late in games, he had the players to have a winning season. He still does.

Now I am ready to wait and see what he can do, with time to recruit the players he couldn't get at O St, that he should be able to get here. Didn't like the hire, but am still willing to wait a couple more years, unless there is a complete melt down next year. Good signing class or not, we will have Riley for at least two more years. We might as well get behind this staff.

GBR!!!

What 2 star and low 3 star recruits are you saying we have?

 

[LumberJackSker]

How is a recruiting class ranked in the 40's receive an A?

1.) We're viewing Riley's hiring to now as the year.

2.) Nebraska's current rank is 32.

so if he had a top 25 or even top 15 class would he get am A++++++++

 

[Hujan]

I truly fear all of the FIRE RILEY discussion that goes on around places like this will turn away the likes of Keyshawn and his crew. We have a bigger voice than we know.

That said, we do need a solid commit here soon before our class momentum completely dies. Hopefully once the dead period ends, we see an explosion and a strong finish.

I still, for the life of me, don't understand why people think the fan angst has such a big impact on recruiting separate and apart from the reason for the angst in the first place.

For one, as long as the stadium is full on game days, it is only relevant if one assumes that fan angst will translate into a coach's firing and we all know that ADs don't fire successful coaches just because the fans are in uproar (assuming fans would even be in uproar if the coach was successful, itself a dubious assumption).

Two, it unrealistically assumes that other programs experiencing similar problems are magically going to have much more patient, well-behaved fans than ours. But if you're read any other teams' message boards, you'd know that the angst is at best a wash and, more realistically, other teams' boards make Nebraska's message boards look like The Reading Rainbow. You think Texas, USC, LSU, or Alabama have less caustic boards than Nebraska? They will tar and feather their coaches if the margin of victory is not to their liking. Half of our fanbase would feel guilty about getting angry at Riley if he tortured dogs in his free time and would probably find a way to blame themselves for him doing it.

Blaming the message boards for paltry recruiting is at once a very arrogant and very self-loathing thing to say, IMO.

Forgetting that 18 year old kids who are highly touted have access to the internet is part of that line of thinking.

If they are considering school A and school B, jump on a social media website for both and randomly see positive thinking from one fan base but anger and loathing from the other, it could easily sway them the other way.

Our players see more of what we post on this message board than you think, why wouldn't a recruit come to anplace like this to see what the fans think?

I don't doubt recruits might peruse the boards. But the false predicate in your hypothetical is that our board will be more "negative" than the boards pertaining to the other 5-7 teams the recruit is also considering. I think that's really unlikely.

And if your answer is to point out the recruit might be comparing us to successful programs with positive boards, I would counter that (1) our relative negativity would be over shadowed by the reason for it (I.e., our comparatively poor record), and (2) that any recruit worth having should be able to see that comparing the attitudes of fans on a 10-2 team to those of a 5-7 team is very apples to oranges.

Unless we are supposed to act like over medicated, loopy Stepford fans with creepy plastic smiles in the face of objectively terrible coaching decisions, I don't find the content of the board all that surprising or abnormal and neither would a recruit comparing us to TCU.

You are missing the point. All it takes it 1 nasty comment and it could completely change a kids mind on whether or not he wants to come here.

I'm not saying we should all pump sunshine, but some of the crap that gets posted here is exactly what would make me not want to play here if it were me.

If it only takes one nasty comment for them not to want to come here, they probably weren't coming anyway or wouldn't have lasted if they did.

Or any other program for that matter. The recruit who is capable of being dissuaded by just one negative comment will likely not find a home anywhere without developing thicker skin.

I truly fear all of the FIRE RILEY discussion that goes on around places like this will turn away the likes of Keyshawn and his crew. We have a bigger voice than we know.

That said, we do need a solid commit here soon before our class momentum completely dies. Hopefully once the dead period ends, we see an explosion and a strong finish.

I still, for the life of me, don't understand why people think the fan angst has such a big impact on recruiting separate and apart from the reason for the angst in the first place.

For one, as long as the stadium is full on game days, it is only relevant if one assumes that fan angst will translate into a coach's firing and we all know that ADs don't fire successful coaches just because the fans are in uproar (assuming fans would even be in uproar if the coach was successful, itself a dubious assumption).

Two, it unrealistically assumes that other programs experiencing similar problems are magically going to have much more patient, well-behaved fans than ours. But if you're read any other teams' message boards, you'd know that the angst is at best a wash and, more realistically, other teams' boards make Nebraska's message boards look like The Reading Rainbow. You think Texas, USC, LSU, or Alabama have less caustic boards than Nebraska? They will tar and feather their coaches if the margin of victory is not to their liking. Half of our fanbase would feel guilty about getting angry at Riley if he tortured dogs in his free time and would probably find a way to blame themselves for him doing it.

Blaming the message boards for paltry recruiting is at once a very arrogant and very self-loathing thing to say, IMO.

Forgetting that 18 year old kids who are highly touted have access to the internet is part of that line of thinking.

If they are considering school A and school B, jump on a social media website for both and randomly see positive thinking from one fan base but anger and loathing from the other, it could easily sway them the other way.

Our players see more of what we post on this message board than you think, why wouldn't a recruit come to anplace like this to see what the fans think?

I don't doubt recruits might peruse the boards. But the false predicate in your hypothetical is that our board will be more "negative" than the boards pertaining to the other 5-7 teams the recruit is also considering. I think that's really unlikely.

And if your answer is to point out the recruit might be comparing us to successful programs with positive boards, I would counter that (1) our relative negativity would be over shadowed by the reason for it (I.e., our comparatively poor record), and (2) that any recruit worth having should be able to see that comparing the attitudes of fans on a 10-2 team to those of a 5-7 team is very apples to oranges.

Unless we are supposed to act like over medicated, loopy Stepford fans with creepy plastic smiles in the face of objectively terrible coaching decisions, I don't find the content of the board all that surprising or abnormal and neither would a recruit comparing us to TCU.

You are missing the point. All it takes it 1 nasty comment and it could completely change a kids mind on whether or not he wants to come here.

I'm not saying we should all pump sunshine, but some of the crap that gets posted here is exactly what would make me not want to play here if it were me.

If it only takes one nasty comment for them not to want to come here, they probably weren't coming anyway or wouldn't have lasted if they did.

Maybe, but why risk it?

We can keep throwing out the excuse of "Other fan bases are just as pissy and hostile on the internet as we are so it doesn't hurt recruiting" all we want, but it's BS. It's just a way to pretend we are still a special fan base while getting to say we should fire our coach 4 games into a season. Our fan base used to be an asset and not only in the stadium on game day.

It has nothing to do with preserving our "specialness" as a fan base. The reason I reject the contention that negative comments dissuade recruits is because that assertion is being used as a basis for censorship. People who share your mindset want to whitewash message boards and online discussion of the team so that it is all roses and sunshine. But that would be as dishonest as it is unrealistic.

Being "negative" serves a purpose. It is frankly cathartic to be able to vent after a frustrating game. It may also be productive in the sense that fan angst could be a catalyst for the coaches to reexamine their strategies. I have very little doubt that game plan against UCLA and Riley's comments about wanting to establish the run are, at least in part, a reaction to the overwhelming consensus among fans that Nebraska needed/needs to run the ball more.

Of course, people can go to far in their "negativity" and it becomes unproductive, but even so, I think those instances are no more destructive to the program than the many sunshine pumpers who are happy to dispense a multitude of excuses for the program's struggles and are glossing over very real issues with the program.

As in everything, there is balance. But to say that anything but non-stop sunshine pumping is damaging to the program is nonsense, in my humble opinion. And if speaking one's honest opinion is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

(BTW, 1995, I don't necessarily consider you part of the group of non-stop sunshine pumpers I'm referencing; I'm merely addressing you because we're having the discussion, but I don't have any contempt for you personally, FWIW.)