Chatelain: Husker culture shift taking hold after jolting year of transition under Mike Riley

Husker culture shift taking hold after jolting year of transition under Mike Riley

Pretty good article by Dirk Chatelain that has a lot of player (and current staff) interview comments where they talk about the differences in leadership style between Bo and Riley.


Taking orders from a strong personality has its value. But at crunch time, Bray says, “the same buy-in isn’t there.”
“When it’s yours, you won’t let that slip through your fingers. You won’t let things fade away. Just that little bit of mentality is a big difference when it comes to close games.”
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Great article, for some reason I don't feel the same type of tension leading up to a big game that I did under Bo. Seems like the team is more cool and collected, so hopefully that translates into better play on the field with the pressure on.

Bo just put too much weight on their shoulders because of his coaching style and his sideline temper tantrums. Riley seems to let the players build their own bonds and relationships based on trust, instead of forcing a strict philosophy of discipline on them.

 
"Do the right thing". Heck yes. That philosophy will serve those young men well long after the pads come off.

I had an old Sgt in the Army that taught me the same thing. I'd screwed up plenty. But one time I took the heat for someone else to avoid the "snitch" routine. Most everyone knew I wasn't the culprit this time, but I got a "special" assignment. Had to build a trailer over the weekend when normally I'd be off in town (causing trouble with the frauleins no doubt). Sgt Traw was assigned to direct me.

I got the materials rounded up Saturday morning and started to work, before Sgt Traw showed up even. He walked up, took of his fatigue shirt, grabbed some gear and started in helping me. "Sarg, you don't need to help me.....you didn't screw up!" He looked at me and said "You are here because you did the right thing, taking heat for a friend. I'm going to help you because it is the right thing to do. And, because you are so lousy with tools we'll be here all weekend if I don't." He laughed a bit and we worked till we were dripping sweat. Finished the trailer late Saturday afternoon and he set me free, with those same four words. "Killer, always do the right thing". I live by his example, and only wish I could have had the chance to tell him.

 
LOL....I have CM on ignore. Not because I don't ever read his posts. It's so that I can guess what he wrote before I open the post and read it.

I must say...this time I was spot on.

Great article by Dirk. I found it interesting the parts about when they took over they didn't come into practice yelling at people. I know a couple who have a son on the team. When Riley took over, I asked how it was going. He specifically said that they attended a practice and "it was weird. Nobody was yelling at anyone".

I wrote a number of times on here last year that Riley was making the team figure out leadership because up till then, the leadership was forced on them from the top.

Interesting to read this now.

 
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This is definitely an interesting article. I'm don't have the animosity towards Dirk that some on this board do. Yeah, he can be snarky at times, but I think he is a very good writer.

Regarding Bo, I thought it was time for him to go when he was fired. Yes, he was winning, but it wasn't to the championship level he was expected to. His act had grown stale, as did his teams. I give Bo a lot of credit for making NU a winning program again, and the quick turnaround. I wasn't as upset about the blowouts as most here, but I can see how his way of coaching could lead to blowouts when things start to go downhill.

Regarding Riley, he seems like a very nice person with a great attitude. I like his mantra of "doing the right thing" (it's a basic attitude that we all would like from people) and how he wants the leadership to trickle down from the team leaders. However, the team seems to be doing well with some great leaders on the team, which you give credit for Bo and his staff for recruiting. Bo liked to recruit good players and leaders from successful high school programs. Those guys were leaders in their high school programs, and they have blossomed to be leaders at NU. It will be interesting to see if Riley can continue to recruit the leaders that are necessary for his program.

 
Dirk will sacrifice nuance for a good narrative. That's always been his style. This is another example of how he casts roles rather than really digging into complexities. He also is loose with his quotes. For example, the Kaz reference cites no source and the Banker quote is clearly in isolation. It's bad journalistic form to lace things together like that.

That's what I was saying.

 
Really good article. What I took from it was Pelini's way of doing things wasn't necessarily wrong, just a different set of advantages and disadvantages. Just like every offensive philosophy has it's pro's and con's. I think another important take away is that both coaches are true to themselves. I think we could all agree Bo couldn't coach the way Riley does and vice versa each coach has to stick to their style. Failing to do so would result in coming across as a phony and your players not buying into what you're selling.

One question that seemed to come up a lot during the early Pelini days to Osbourne was what (if any) advice he had given to Pelini and he often replied something to the effect that he had to be himself, and empathized with Pelini in that he was often criticized for being the opposite of Pelini, too calm, too quiet etc and you had to ignore it and be yourself as a coach.

 
It is nice to know that when the lights of the nation will be on our sideline, it won't be because the coach is out of control. Some times MR looks to calm like he doesn't care but we know he cares deeply - just need to stomp and yell. His temperament helps the team and I think we see this by their 4th quarter performance - starting wt the MSU game last year.

 
GBRFAN said:
CM

You might want to read that article one more time - it's pretty good.
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It is well written. Dirk is good at creating narratives.

My issue is that it overly simplifies each personality.

I saw Riley get fired up at a player this past weekend - he's not just all "Mr Rogers" and what not. I know from people who played for Bo that it was hardly fire and brimstone all of the time. I also know that guys like Abdullah, Burkhead, Suh and a host of others provided on team leadership, so it's inaccurate to imply that it was all top down under the last regime.

Plus, this article talks about how it's so calm at practice now - that conflicts with what we've seen in other articles, and even vidoes, where coaches are getting fired up.

Just saying, journalists want to tell a good story, and I get that, but they need to be careful to not let a narrative get in the way of reality.

My issue with Dirk is that he's done that far too much since he started writing.

 
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