Giving a coach the boot after 3 'Riley-esque' seasons? yay or nay, depending on what?

It's HOW the team loses, and how things are trending that concerns me the most.  If "new guy" comes in, and has losing records his first two years, but they are competitive and passionate in every loss, and little improvements seen each week/year, I'm willing to give "that product" more time to get pieces in place to turn the competitive losses into eventual wins.

When you lose to NIU and are underdogs to Turdue in your 3rd year, you gots to go.

Edit:  Adding the fact that they aren't favored in any remaining game against mediocre teams... gots to go.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
No one is saying we have to win championships by year 3. 99.9% of us just want to see progress and growth. Nothing has improved. You could argue player development is worse under Riley. I would enjoy seeing JD and Tyjon playing in Scotts offense personally. We have fringe top 25 talent and are playing so far below that it's sickening. 

 
As others have stated, broadly speaking what area of the game have we seen marked improvement in by year 3? Where have we seen a serious regression? Punting, is about the only area that comes to mind in the improvement department. Diaco has coached up Lightbourn. On the other hand, Riley is an offensive coach and for two years we heard him give his stuff like"oh shucks, a mobile QB is a new and exciting component to our offense.". It was the working assumption Armstrong was just a band-aid to get us to their prototypical QB. Well here we are in year 3 and his offensive vision with his QB, chosen from a class of 3 capable guys is an anemic mess. Armstrong in retrospect was not a band-aid, but the main piece that salvaged a 50/50 system that doesn't seem to do anything well, consistently. 

We tried an injection of new coaches after year two and that didn't seem to help. Banker put out a more serviceable unit than Diaco. So where does that leave us in retaining Riley? Injecting more new assistants in the hopes it all comes together in year 4? Recruiting seems to be on the uptick, but is that enough to excuse the product we have seen in year three? Not for me. I wanted this to work and it hasn't. This isn't just a fire RIley to get Frost angle for me. It's a fire an inept coach and bring in anyone for a full reboot. 

 
FlipPhone said:
It's HOW the team loses, and how things are trending that concerns me the most.  If "new guy" comes in, and has losing records his first two years, but they are competitive and passionate in every loss, and little improvements seen each week/year, I'm willing to give "that product" more time to get pieces in place to turn the competitive losses into eventual wins.

When you lose to NIU and are underdogs to Turdue in your 3rd year, you gots to go.

Edit:  Adding the fact that they aren't favored in any remaining game against mediocre teams... gots to go.
Click to expand...


The product on the field is what has been and should be measured.  As one who had predicted this MR team to be 7-5, he still could very well do that.  However, the product on the field has not measured up at all to what was sold.  The QB solution was over-sold.  Diaco and the 3-4 was over-sold ... and really we have no "blackshirt" feeling at all to this defense.

I don't think it's fair to project into the season about whether we are "favored" or not in these games.  It has to come back to what gets done on the field.  It makes perfect sense that we aren't gonna be favored in the rest of these games, however, MR certainly has every opportunity to fight for his team like a drowning man.  Yet, that is the question ... he doesn't appear to show much passion nor coach as if his job is on the line.  It appears he has given up ... and that makes folks like me feel more like a shark in the water.  :-(

 
A question that will be asked eventually (maybe it has already) is if the next coach (Frost, hopefully) is coming in with less or more talent then what Riley came in with?

 
I think it depends on the way things are trending and what the following years would look like if you kept that coach. Since it's a comparison to Riley, and the only component that has shown any sign of life is recruiting, I say you replace Saban, Meyer, whoever if their prognosis is truly identical. Talent is next to useless if there is no development, no working scheme, no fire.

 
If Riley was in his mid 40s or even early 50s these 3 years would be more acceptable and I could use the patience to see if he could rebuild things. Problem is, Riley is in his mid 60s, and lets just say he could turn things around, and lets say at best it's in 2 years, because looking at next years schedule he isn't winning any titles, then Riley is looking at his late 60s and probably nearing retirement. So what does that do for Nebraska? 5 years with the Cornhuskers, maybe we get one 10 win season with him, he retires, then we are looking for a new coach and "rebuilding" again. This scenario was exactly why the hiring of Riley was so baffling, if he didn't have immediate success, the hire made no sense.

 
NebraskaHarry said:
A question that will be asked eventually (maybe it has already) is if the next coach (Frost, hopefully) is coming in with less or more talent then what Riley came in with?
Click to expand...
He'll have a far worse O-line; and that basically kills the team. So, yeah, less talent.

BUUUUUUT;

He'll probably have better skill position players on O, He might have a better QB to groom in Gebbia or O'Brien

Defense is a big Q. It's my opinion that Riley had better talent coming in than what will be left over next year; but the system we are currently running may be 'washing-out' some of the natural talent of some of our players and putting these kids in a position to look bad... or they just may not be as talented.

 
Also appears Florida may be getting rid of their coach and he has two divisional titles in his 3 years at Florida. In fact this would be the first year the Gators don't win the SEC East under him. He has also finished in the top 25 each season.

 
Football is the cash cow at most schools.  Duke, UNC, Kansas, Kentucky, and maybe UCLA don't have to depend on football to bring in money, but it helps them as well.  Florida can't risk falling behind in the SEC.  Georgia is improving and Tennesee is getting ready to move on.   Florida can't risk falling to 4th or 5th fiddle in its own conference.

Nebraska is in the same avenue.  Football pays the bills.  Cant wait and see when your needing that revenue for the programs and other programs need it as well.  Its been proven that when you have a winning football team, your overall University has higher enrollment.  Football matters in so many different ways.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top