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Who the hell leaves Nebraska for Colorado State. This is embarrassing. When I first read the thread title I thought it said Colorado. But losing a player to CSU?

I'd say it's the other way around.

CSU>>>>>CU lately

1-5 in division. Setting up for another trainwreck of a season.

Riley is a career .500 coach for a reason.

No way is 2015 Purdue the worst loss in even recent Nebraska history. That was a thin team in the midst of a tumultuous season, down its starting QB, its best offensive lineman, two of its starting DBs, and one of its WRs, and they'd lose both their starting RB and most dangerous playmaker in the course of the game too, if I recall. It was a spectacular disaster for the skeleton crew and a very poor showing by them, but that Purdue team also took Michigan State to the wire.People will forget this game, and it won't be a shame, because it was a blip on the radar. If it helped light a fire under some of the NU players who made sure that it became the nadir of the 2015 season, great. We can close the book on that game at this point, IMO.How about this, by the way:

Nebraska played with just 44 active scholarship players from the previous three recruiting classes, a paltry total compared to its major-conference peers.

That's not including the '15 class of what was it, 21?I'd like to see those numbers in better context, but I expect Riley to start building these numbers back up. I'm actually really surprised by the 44 number.

1992 loss to Iowa State is the only other loss that compares to Purdue '15 in the modern era. Absolute bottom of the barrel, even with the excuses.

I just don't get the thought of "well, at least they were all close losses." I agree that blowout losses to Wisconsin, Ohio State, and other games under Bo were embarrassing. But, going 5-7 this year was embarrassing. Having the BYU Hail Mary replayed on every sports channel numerous times was embarrassing. Losing to Illinois on one of the stupidest coach/player decision I have ever seen was embarrassing. Getting torched by Purdue for over 50 points was embarrassing.

 

I'm not saying I want Bo back, or those were successful seasons. IMO, any time NU doesn't win their Big Ten division, the season was not successful. Other than that, I am a pretty black-and-white guy. A win is a win, and a loss is a loss. To me, a 9 win season is more successful than a 6 win season regardless of the specific outcomes. If anything, having a bunch of close losses gives me more concern about the coaching staff, because there could have been a few coaching mistakes/decisions in each game that led to those losses.

Knocked.out.of.the.park

Oh please, oh please, oh PLEASE!!

Just one more 'adventure'...

 

 

If I had to choose elite coaching or elite talent, I'd choose elite coaching every time.

What? Lol. So I guess you'd be okay with us skimming by with 11-1 seasons until we get crushed by a better program much like MSU getting embarrassed by Alabama. The 90's Husker teams were a combination of great talent and great coaching. You have to have the right horses (players).

The mentality expressed in your post (and some others here) is exactly what almost got Osborne run out. Because what happen to MSU was reminiscent of some Husker teams, too.

Of course you need both. Never said you didn't. But if forced to choose, I'd take elite coaching over talent because all of the talent in the world can't win a championship on its own (maybe the 2001 hurricanes being an exception, though I think Coker was a little unfairly maligned and the U has been missing him).

My point is, at a place like Nebraska, which never has and never will consistently (legally) field top 10 recruiting classes, you need to lean on superior coaching and wait for the pieces to fall into place for a special run. It's why that "measely .700 standard" is actually meaningful. Because only a very good coach can maintain that and it keeps NU poised for a better run. Hoping to hire a bunch of "great recruiters" and riding a talent wave to a championship won't bear the fruit that some of you seem to think it will, imo.

Bravo. Well stated.

Unless they dramatically exceed the * average they have verballed thus far for the last half dozen recruits (highly unlikely, IMO) the best they can hope for is a class around 25-30 based on current rankings/commit #'s/ and * averages of the teams ahead of them. No way that translates to an A grade, especially since they now have unprecedented resources and budget that no Nebraska coach has EVER had.

IMO, this grade is currently C - or worse, based purely on ROI. This class is indistinguishable from those preceding it at 2-3X the cost. Two of the current top 5 recruits verballed to the previous staff, and they lost one of the top 5 that had done the same.

Every decent recruit they were '"In the mix" with the last month that declared committed elsewhere, while we picked up a KOS/P and a quick commit/decommit from another 3* kid.

I view this class as squandering a ton of goodwill and early (previous staff/spring/summer) momentum due to incompetent coaching during the season, putting the staff on a very real hot seat. It would be cake to negative recruit against Riley, as a losing season means you WILL be fired eventually. No coach at NU has survived a 6-7 loss season for more than a couple years. They will get some bump from the late rally, but the damage was done mid-season.

Farniok is the one to watch. He was a slam dunk under any staff here...if he goes elsewhere, that is a horrible, horrible sign.

Dennis Wagner was the OL coach under Callahan. Came here with a good resume and underwhelmed. Callahan was a famous micromanager on the OL. Wagner's parting comments were telling, as I recall.

The culture change will be finalized when the current players that do not fit or do not buy in are flushed from the program. Can't happen soon enough, so we can move on with fixing the program.

And the last shreds of winning are finally eliminated...

On Unsportsmanlike Conduct yesterday, one of their guests mentioned a national writer (can't remember his name). Anyway, the guest said the national guy believes there will be more than 25 openings at the end of the year. That is 20% of Div1 college football teams looking for a new coach...

 

Did anyone else hear the segment and rembember the writer's name?

Might as well add Texas to that list as well. Getting shut out in Ames doomed his time there.

 

That will open up Houston, cause thats where Herman will go. Houston is a better gig than 2/3 of those other jobs.

 

Its just starting. I think that KSU will be looking for a head man as well, since Snyder has stayed about 2 years to long.

 

That list will get longer, and it will have more Power 5 schools added to it.

 

Its hard to sit here and say, lets wait, its also hard to say lets fire Riley and Co. If you knew that Tom Herman would come running this way, I would go and lock him down now.

 

Right now were looking at Trev Alberts and Scott Frost. That is our only reasonable coaching prospect in my eyes.

Agree with most of this post, especially re; Herman. He is even more sure-fire than McElwain was last year, IMO. Missed the boat on him last year.

I am of the opinion that a Frost hire is the type of mulligan we would ultimately be forgiven for in the big picture and involves significant less risk to the program than retaining Riley only to dump him in a year or two. Oops, we screwed up! Trusted someone to hire a new coach to run our program who didn't know what he was doing and didn't interview enough candidates. We fixed the glitch! Here's the guy we meant to hire. Frost would have for more support on day 1 than Riley did or ever will.

KSU is an interesting one. Snyder lobbying for his kid...probably ain't gonna happen, especially on a losing skid, and the nepotism hires (whether good or bad, deserving or not) just don't pass muster at a state institution these days. (Recall Ferentz having to undergo a review ober hiring his son as OL coach at Iowa a few years back) Sets up a pontentially acrimonious split with the Snyder Family (Stadium). Who are they gonna hire to negotiate that situation and appease Granny Bill?

 

 

 

 

 

Offensive linemen and running backs are dropping out like rats off a sinking ship. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the inexplicably bad rotations at both positions.

 

One lineman and One RB. Let's not get carried away here.

So far.

And when was the last time two players voluntarily quit mid-season, on the same day, for reasons other than injury?

I will be concerned when it's actual contributors quitting

Like Ross Pilkington? That was a raging clue that Callahan was a complete dickhole.

That is a very good example. Jordan Stevenson and Matt Finnin are not.

I didn't mean to either conflate the two situations or imply that they were similar.

Just pointing out that Callahan was a dickhole...and Ross Pilkington was a captain, I believe. It spoke volumes to me then.

There will be plenty of others who jump off the ship before it completely sinks; this is only the beginning.

Anyone advocating that Riley run players off NOW is just setting us up for bigger disaster under the next HC. We were lucky not to lose upwards of 10 to transfer or more including the recruiting class (which I give fair credit to the current staff for the job they did in mitigating that damage.

It boggles the mind that people are actually advocating we actively purge talent from this roster in favor of "Riley recruits." I'm sorry, but that is more short-sighted than firing a disaster of a staff...which WiLL happen, sooner than later.

 

 

 

Offensive linemen and running backs are dropping out like rats off a sinking ship. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the inexplicably bad rotations at both positions.

 

One lineman and One RB. Let's not get carried away here.

So far.

And when was the last time two players voluntarily quit mid-season, on the same day, for reasons other than injury?

I will be concerned when it's actual contributors quitting

Like Ross Pilkington? That was a raging clue that Callahan was a complete dickhole.

Truly amazing.

What a great statement! It is too bad the AD didn't lay it all out there for people to see. Now we have the revisionists ignore all that stuff and focusing on the AD's statements about "games that matter" and "players capable" etc.

I think Pettit got his release date screwed up. There will be even more waters to calm after this week, another loss to blame on someone other than the current coaching staff. That's just elementary. Space it out a bit, Shawn!

After the Illinois game, they dropped the "former coaches tweeting players" bomb (that was later debunked by Collins) mid-week to deflect the discussion. Two (?) losses ago, the "90% positive emails" TV interview vote of confidence. This week the written (second) VOC from the AD on Sunday.

Yeah, this just came out of the blue...

Maybe 18 months was the timeline for SE to return to the mothership?

 

Frank's '04 class was ranked #14 by Rivals the day he was canned. He also would've likely ended up offering Danny Woodhead before signing day.

 

And apparently Pedey made the decision without any input from Tom Osborne, who famously said, "I think we could've solved this with 45 mintues together in a conference room."

 

You keep repeating the bolded. I'm curious if you have something to back it up.

 

I know that according to Rivals Frank's 02 class was #40 and 03 class was #42.

There are no links to in-season recruiting rankings on specific dates to provide you, but I can echo that this is correct. The class was #14 in Nov '03 prior to the firing, visits by Muy and the other "Florida Five" were in the works and Pelini was making good inroads on that bunch when the pin was pulled.

I say you look at Dantonio, even though he has a much better recruiting hotbed. Win 11-12 games and/or a CCG. Same thing every previous staff here was trying to do. Until then, or until you cheat, or until you just go out and hire recruiters regardless of coaching ability...ain't happening here. Bray is the only star recruiter on this staff. Just so happens he's a good coach, too, but he is obviously the exception.

I've actively followed recruiting for the past decade. No figures will be available for at least a couple years, but i estimate that we've at least doubled, if not tripled, the recruiting budget under Riley and added infinitely more manpower and resources to recruiting than ANY previous Nebraska staff EVER had. To date, there has been little to no actual ROI on that investment. We are getting commitments from the exact same type of 2-4* players we always have. The only difference is what system they are best suited for. There is nothing particularly wrong or bad about that, but this myth that Riley is some hotshot recruiter is just that. Riley is not breaking any new ground. He is continuing the positive momentum the previous staff had built thr most recent 2-3 classes, which is fine, but until we see some bonfide results, it's hard to say that the average, classes will improve much at all. I'm not arguing we didn't absolutely need the resources or infrastructure, because we did, but Riley is doing a little more than treading water at this point, and the losses piling up make their long-term job security a valid issue and a neg recruiting point for everyone else. All the good they were starting to do has essentially been canceled out by incompetent game management and poor coaching.

One interesting thing I got from the Dillard interview was his take on Callahan's recruiting. His claim is that it was only John Blake that was responsible for Callahan's rep. Worth listening to for that tidbit.

 

 

 

 

In 2004 I posted on Huskerpedia that Pedey was risking two decades of wandering in the wilderness and our program turining into Kansas.

11 years later we have nearly arrived...losing to Purdue, Northwestern, Illinois, BYU with 10-11 win talent.

Either we fire/hire our way out of this NOW, or this program risks irrelevancy forever.

 

I don't think anyone would argue if you said that we are underachieving. But 10-11 win talent? Really? I would've thought we fell off just a bit, talent wise, from last year's nine win team. And that was before the rash of injuries. Have you looked at this thread lately? LINK

The "fire everyone" crowd doesn't care about facts. "9 wins"!!!@!@?@<>#!@#?! is all they care about. just like their hero Bo.

I care about facts. I care about 9 wins. Apparently you're happy with 3 wins.

No, but I am happy that we have adults running the program again, and are trying to bring back a culture of accountability and championships. What you fail to understand is that this program was completely void of any culture other than "Us vs Them". If we have to suffer through only 3 wins this season to right this ship and get it going in the correct direction again. Then yes I'm happy with 3 wins. I would rather have that, than a mentally corrupt, sleazebag, non accountable environment that permeated this program for the past 10 years.

So-called "adults" that cannot motivate a locker room, cannot manage a clock, cannot gameplan effectively against a bottom 25% run defense, and can't beat a coach that has won only 2 other FBS games?

Sorry, I'd rather have infants with actual coaching acumen and fire than these alleged 'adults' you espouse.

 

 

If you guys can't see the harm you are doing to this program right now, then there is seriously no hope for Nebraska football.

 

Did you call for Pelini to be fired?

not until he gave up 408 yards in 3 quarters, in his 7th season. Which by the way was after, he told the fans to F off, as well as dare his boss to fire him, among many other "endearing" things he did. All the while the entire country knew he was going to be fired, it was only a matter of when, not if. But I'm guessing you can't see the difference between the two and call me hypocritical anyways.

So, your point is what? After this past weekend, the entire country also KNOWS Riley is going to be fired. He and his entire staff are already lame ducks...whether it is tomorrow (it should be) or two more losing seasons later, he WILL be fired. At 3-6, that train has already left the station. Your pleas are not going to stop that. You don't lose 6 games at NU and keep your job.

We can choose to let this hire drag us down further into the muck or limit the potential damage immediately.

 

Yeah, I have pretty much resigned myself to this. He'll be here one more year, so the most we can do is hope for the best. This OBrien kid better light the world on fire, though.

 

 

Who is the last prostyle QB to light the world on fire at any point, let alone as a freshman? Connor is pointed to as a prototype for Riley and Langs, but he's an average QB at the college level.

 

That's what I don't get about those pinning hopes and dreams on POB, who could just as easily be another Harrison Beck or Hackenburg.

Belief that a kid currently in HS is the "answer" (POB) is just patently insulting and putting a whole lot of belief eggs into a faulty basket. He will not coordinate the defense for MB. He will not begin rotating OL for Cav. He will not commit to the run for DL. He will not manage the clock for MR. He will not find a way to motivate a locker room. He will not win at a .300 higher clip than Riley's historical average.

The earliest he COULD have a positive impact is 2017. Riley will be well into his next fiasco or retirement by then.

 

Have any of the top 15 winning programs in cfb ever hired a bad coach and fired him after one season?

 

 

 

Really curious as to any precedent for this.

 

Alabama fired Mike Price before he coached a game; and Notre Dame did the same to George O'Leary.

Good point!

Riley most likely lied on his resume. It probably says something about previously being a 'football coach.'

This thread is full of awesome.

Chockers.

Seriously, Herman is my #1 pick today. He was outstanding as OC at ISU and I hated to see him go to tOSU. Not surprising he has done an immediate 180o at Houston already.

Frost was my #1 last year, but is a perfect 1A of we can't pay Herman enough or lure him from somewhere else. We can give him "time" and still win 9-10 games a year while he's "learning" to be a head coach. I don't understand why we should be afraid or ashamed to just be "Nebraska" again? This solves all of our identity issues, our buy-in issues, our cultural issues, and our grumpy fanbase issues...except of course those that are ashamed to go back to being boring old Nebraska. At least he would have a chance to reimplement the type of system and mindset that made NU successful over 40+ years, with a modern college offense.