speedtoburn

I am aware that there are many who think we have a legitimate shot at beating Oregon. I'm trying to understand logically how someone arrives at that conclusion. We got torched last week to the tune of nearly 500 yards whilst having to hang on for dear life against Arkansas State. In the face of the above, and considering our next opponent has a plethora of athletes much better than Arkansas State along with a prolific offense built to spread the ball around like wildfire and exploit the same mismatches and weaknesses that Arkansas State did, I'm trying to understand how on earth there is an expectation that we can even be COMPETITIVE in this game let alone win it? What quantifiable things am I missing? What should make me hope for something other than another embarrassing smackdown on national TV?

We will never compete at the level people so desperately crave with Mike Riley as head coach. Eichorst's hiring of Riley is the apex of the trend our program has of completely blundering every opportunity they've had to hire a coach. A trend that defies all odd's and now inexplicably spans multiple AD's. Statistics don't lie, Riley has been an average to below average coach everywhere he's been....this is what our current AD has now saddled us with, it is disgustingly mind boggling. We will now be stuck in the mire of 7-9 win seasons and no appreciable achievements for the next 3-5 years. Riley will get at least 3 more years regardless, and probably closer to 5 would be my guess. We will remain largely irrelevant until he is canned or decides to leave at which point we'll get another shot, and most likely bungle that hire as well. The leadership of our University has allowed our football program to essentially become "Minnesota", and every person who has played a part in allowing that to happen should be ashamed of themselves.

What a f@&$!?g joke we are. We're going to have to endure at least 3 or 4 more years of this garbage untill the Athletic administration pulls its head out of its ass and uses their brain to hire a coach with a proven record of success vs this mediocre yokel we have.

I should substitute "gambling" with "experimenting".

Nick Saban and Urban Meyer are not coming to Lincoln for any price. Michigan had to pay Harbaugh close to $10 million to go back to his alma mater. Outside of two or three coaches, there is no such thing as a coaching hire that is not a gamble. Coaches who can go anywhere and be successful are the exception, not the rule. Now you're talking degrees of calculated risk. I think that all three hires represent the high end of such a scale; additionally, I don't believe that we couldn't have gotten much better candidates.

I would love to know the answer to this question, but doubt we'll ever know. Also, what constitutes "available"?

Fair point, not going to argue. I understand your position. Just a yes/no question: Statistically/generally speaking, in your opinion, if you were presented with two coaching candidates... with candidate "A" having demonstrated inarguable success (lets say +.750 in percentage) at his previous school/s and candidate "B" having no record as a head coach to judge and/or a career .500 record, would it stand to reason that candidate B, gives you a better chance at being successful? Forget about any other considerations...I'm talking about this specific vacuum....does B give you a better chance to win than A? Yes or no?

I suppose we'll never know since coaching searches are typically conducted in complete secrecy. But I've never gotten the sense in any anecdotal capacity, that Nebraska is a school really willing to step up and fork out top shelf money. Quite the contrary, during Osborne's tenure, he has been on record using verbiage which very clearly implied that he did not believe in the ethos of extremely high paid college football coaches and I believe this thought process has permeated multiple administrations now. The picture that was painted regarding the Riley hire is that Eichorst for all intents and purposes never even really seriously considered anyone other than Riley. If true, it would represent a level of ineptitude that was truly mind-boggling. But this experimental hiring pattern which now spans 15 years is disturbing. I hope that Mike Riley succeeds, I don't want to see him fail, but if he doesn't at what point will someone break this pattern?

Let me explain... Right now our program is completely lost in a deep dark forest and has been for the lat 15 years. For reasons that are absolutely mind-boggling and have spanned MULTIPLE athletic administrations, our solution to get out of this forest has been to basically "Experiment". - In 2004, we gambled by hiring a known NFL commodity with no collegiate head coaching experience. - In 2007, we gambled by hiring an up and coming Coordinator with no collegiate head coaching experience. - In 2014, we gambled by hiring a college head coach with a collegiate career winning percentage of .563....that's right, .563. In essence, this individual won slightly more than half of all his games. In each instance, the fan-base was sold narratives of varying "color". With this last hire being perhaps the most preposterous and grandiose of them all,,,that despite all evidence to the contrary, a coach with a very pedestrian pedigree was going to come to Lincoln and right the ship. Statistical evidence be damned! This individual will come here, get access to such amazing facilities and talent, that it will Trump everything else! Until this program is ready to stop experimenting, get serious, open up the checkbook and let the college coaching community know that they are willing to pay whatever it takes (5 Million plus) to get an instant game-changing candidate as others have done, we will continue to aimlessly wander in the dark forest we currently find ourselves in.

My guess is that you are too young to remember Tom Osborne's first ten years against the Sooners of Oklahoma. If it is any consolation, I know how you feel, based on Barry Switzer and Jamelle Holloway. Nah, I remember those years really well. Holloway was a premier triggerman of that Wishbone attack, and watching him carve us up wasn't enjoyable. But this....this is so much different. We fell off the cliff 15 years ago and just continue to plummet. I'm hopeful that some day we will truly turn the corner, but losing to these Yahoo!'s year in and year out while collectively (historically) struggling to put away really any Big 10 team on a consistent basis is just disheartening. We've had a nice run this year in games we SHOULD win, when do we start winning ones we shouldn't or ines which are a toss up?

I'm so goddamn sick of losing to Wisconsin. Year, after year, after year, after year we lose to them I don't give a s*@! that BarryAlvarez or anyone else on that team had praise for us, they can take their 'atta boys and shove 'em where the sun don't shine. I'm so tired of losing big games, whether by 1 point, 10 points or 50 points, how many more years are we going to have to endure this 5, 10, 15? Apologies for my ranting but i'm weary from having to endure years of this sh*t, proud of the team, proud of our coaches but goddamnit...

You mean like the 14 year body of work (.538) that Riley had prior to coming to Nebraska which clearly established him as an average coach? You know, the same body of evidence our Athletic Administartion chose to completely disregard in favor of a gamble? I find that to be much more dissapointing...

What evidence/data (anectdotal or otherwise) can you provide that suggest Riley will be successful here simply becasue it's Nebraska and not Oregon State and the football budget is larger? People like you want us to beleive a narrative (he'll succeed now that he's at Nebraska! With access to more money and talent!) that is pure conjecture and speculation based on zero supporting data. You realize how looney that notion reads, right?

Agreed. It is mind boggling to me that we have intelligent people even former players asking the fans to completely disregard years of EMPIRICAL evidence and essentally get on board with the suggestion that a carrer .538 college coach will suddenly turn the corner. We are talking about 14 years woth of irefutable evidence.. How many other coaches (if any) have engineered a career turnaround of the sort we're looking for here? Our desperation to beleive in this guy in the face of reason and logic that clearly indicates that he will fail will sink this program further and I cannot beleive how badly Eichorst bungled this, it is truly mind boggling.

Hope springs eternal as they say; problem is we've been "hoping" for a breakout year for many years now and it's never materialized. Imho, there is no reason to think that next year will be any different. With being said, I do "hope" you're right.

@Moneyball, Gotta say that I love your sig, the tag line and Heston pic is pretty damn funny, hahaha.

From time to time I see people suggest that NU isn't what it once was and that no proven successful head coach would have taken the job. FWIW, I think Whittingham would have considered the job if offered and would have been a great hire that logically would have made a lot of sense.He was always my #1 (realistic) target so to speak but we'll never know. That's all, carry on and GBR.

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Sarge, have you (or anyone asking this question for that matter) ever been to Westwood? If you had; you would not be asking this question. Trucker hit the nail on the head when he talks about the location. Don't get me wrong, Lincoln is a great college town but it isn't even in the same Universe as Westwood (UCLA). There is so much to do there it is sick..great restaurants, killer bars, mecca of nightlife, beaches just down the street (Wilshire to Santa Monica), snow within driving distance (Big Bear), gorgeous women everywhere you turn, entertainment capital of the world, weather to die for (you can figure roughly 70+ degrees 10 months out of the year with virtually no humidity. Hell; within the first week of moving their I randomly hooked up with Danika Mckellar (Winnie Cooper from the Wonder Years) after meeting her at a club in Hollywood; talk about a total mind F*** (you would understand if you grew up watching the show as I did). I don't think anything like that is going to happen in Lincoln

That says a lot without saying much (if that makes sense) and where there's smoke, there's usually fire. I would say that we have lost him to the Bruins.

+1 Well said. Time to put Owa and this thread to rest and move on.

Bingo. To say that Owa replaced Oregon with OSU to "keep people happy" has got to be one of the dumbest conclusions I have ever seen anyone draw. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. He is seriously considering them and guys I hate to break it too you but I just don't think we are going to get him. As much as it sucks he is not going to leave Oregon to come here. Our track record in these kind of situations with these kind of high profile recruits is pretty bad in the sense that we almost always end up losing out to someone else. I don't expect that to change with OWA either, he is as good as gone (probably to OSU). Everyone should just move on from this.

Should I just take one for the team and join HI so that I can find out what's going on for all of us? It's 1:30 and I'm tired of waiting. lol

Who is the faster runner between the two?