ColoradoHusk

I'm glad Bennett had graduated when he missed the Orange Bowl FG. It would have been impossible for him to come back to campus and hear the jeers of jackass students.

If you have automatic bids for conference champions, then you could have a 3 or 4 loss team win a weak division and then pull off a big upset in the conference title game. Would that team with 3 or 4 losses really be in the top 8 of college football? It would make those 3 or 4 losses earlier in the season completely meaningless. What makes college football great is how much the regular season means and how every game is important.

That's not my point...burden of proof on the person who puts forth the theory (not many 60+ year old coaches hired new)....I won't do your work for you. You want to see examples, start googling. My point is that it's a combination of age and situation which makes Riley a questionable hire here. You come up with examples which are completely different than Riley's situation at NU.

""Our charge is simple," said Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long, who will chair the committee. "Determine the best teams in college football and seed them to play each other." That did not happen this year = Total Failure. But at the time the playoffs were chosen they hadn't done enough to prove they were in the top 4. Who do you take out? The committee didn't fail, Ohio State failed. The committee is not capable of determining the 4 best teams... it never will be. The committee and the CFP as it stands now... is as big or a bigger mess than what it replaced. Here we are now... in the second year of the new scheme... and it's already failed. So do you take Ohio State because you "think" they are one of the best 4 teams even though they didn't prove they were one of the best 4 teams when the games were actually played? Any college football system is going to have flaws. When you are dealing with such a high number of teams who don't play each other during the season, it won't be perfect. If you add more teams, it lessens the importance of the regular season. I like it at 4 because it still makes the regular season very important and you really can't take games off.

""Our charge is simple," said Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long, who will chair the committee. "Determine the best teams in college football and seed them to play each other." That did not happen this year = Total Failure. But at the time the playoffs were chosen they hadn't done enough to prove they were in the top 4. Who do you take out? The committee didn't fail, Ohio State failed.

HP, I don't get how you can say the committee "got it wrong" by not including Ohio State. To me, they are supposed to choose the 4 teams with the best resume from the season. Ohio State wasn't one of those 4. Yes, they probably are one of the best 2 or 3 teams, but they didn't do well enough in the season to get one of the 4 playoff spots.

How many 60+ year old coaches have been hired at a brand new school they have no history with and have been successful at that school? I would love to see some examples.

Not sure what you're talking about. What does the preseason have to do with anything ? It makes about as much sense as your thought that Ohio State should have been in the playoff over Michigan State. MSU and Ohio State both had 1 loss. MSU beat Ohio State in their house. MSU then went on and won another game and the Big Ten title. They had a better resume than Ohio State. There is no reason why the committee should have chosen Ohio State over MSU.

Yes, Ohio State is probably better than Michigan State, but the committee didn't get it "wrong" by putting MSU in the playoff over OSU. If that would have happened, then what's the point of having a season of games. They should just put the 4 teams ranked 1-4 in the preseason in the playoff.

Oh how true. Bill Snyder says hi. Rebuilt K State in his 70's. I say this because age is just a number...experience is often times a major advantage versus a handicap. I still go to my grandpa for advice and he is 92...there is a reason for that gentlemen and it isn't because I think he's incapable of thinking. Snyder is the exception......Riley has no idea what it takes to build and maintain a top 20 team.........i doubt he puts in the same hours as Sabin does....even Sabin admitted earlier in an interview what a grind the season was.......takes a lot out of a coach. Snyder also went back to a situation he was familiar with and is basically a Demi-God in Manhattan. They aren't comparable.

Saban went to Alabama at age 55, he was at an age where he can still invest a lot of time and energy into rebuilding that program. I don't know if Saban is slowing down or not as energetic at 64. He may be an outlier, or he may be handing off more responsibilities to his assistants as he gets older. Riley is 62 and is being asked to rebuild a program at NU. That's going to require a lot more time and energy and brainpower than continuing a program at its peak.

I also didn't think Riley and his staff were accustomed to be questioned by the media and the fans like they have been at NU. There were times where his assistants bristled at the media when questioned at their methods. They didn't expect the sophisticated fans and media that are in Nebraska.

It wasn't ESPN's fault the semi-final games were on New Year's Eve. The Playoff Officials chose to put the semis on New Year's Eve in order to keep the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl games on New Year's Day. Really, ESPN got screwed by the Playoff Officials.

Because Bo ran off Blaine Gabbert in the '08 class!!! Meh, his brother bailed on us too I believe. Yeah, Watson wanted his little bro who wasn't nearly as good as Blaine, and he bailed on NU last minute, too. Not real sad about it but Gabbert woulda been more of an impactful talent than Zac Lee, even though he was dreamy and all. Blaine Gabbert was a very good QB and much better than Lee. Younger Gabbert was terrible and didn't last at Mizzou.

Riley couldn’t outcoach an interim Illinois coach or Darrell Hazell. Our run D last year wasn’t as bad as our current passing D. 2014 wins. That interim Illinois coach has a name sir!!! Oh yeah, you're right, I have no idea who he was either.

Because Bo ran off Blaine Gabbert in the '08 class!!! Meh, his brother bailed on us too I believe. Yeah, Watson wanted his little bro who wasn't nearly as good as Blaine, and he bailed on NU last minute, too.

Because Bo ran off Blaine Gabbert in the '08 class!!! Actually, my post is a joke. I looked back at the '06 and '07 classes. Josh Freeman de-committed last minute in '07 and Callahan brought in Patrick Witt from high school along with Lee from JUCO in '07.

I listened to this earlier this week. Sam's rant about the B1G is amazing. That's the part that scares me about Nebraska under Riley. Riley is going to stick with his guys as his assistants and if he loses them, so be it. The few minutes that Sam goes on about the NU defense hits the nail on the head. I posted this in another thread, but NU could run whatever kind of offense it wants to, but if the defense doesn't significantly improve, NU will never be a consistent championship contender.

I will hardly ever defend Callahan, but I fail to see how 70-10 correlates to how the team played 3 years later with completely different players.

70-10 was in 2004, I don't see how that means anything to what happened in 2007. The reason the Purdue loss was so bad was that it was an ass-whipping by a team that ended up 2-10. Yes, there were numerous blowouts under other coaches, but getting manhandled by a terrible team is about as low as it gets.

The committee failed this year. The committee claimed to be in favor of the best 4 teams playing in the playoff. If so, then that should have included Ohio State in the playoff rather than either MS or Oklahoma. The two best teams in the country this year are Alabama and Ohio State. Both should have been in the playoff. Unfortunately the playoff committee failed in it's responsibility. Hopefully the committee will make some changes in the future to stop this type of outcome. The sport really needs them to get this right. I agree that Ohio State and Alabama were probably the 2 best teams this season, however Ohio State blew their chance for their playoff spot when they lost to MSU at home when they faced a backup QB. The regular season games have to matter for something, so MSU deserved the bid over the Buckeyes. CH, thanks for your reply. Three of the four teams had one loss...just like Ohio State. The committee claimed to be able to "overlook" one-off defeats... but somehow not this year. For the sake of the sport... the committee must get these machups right. I can guarantee you that Urban Meyer will NEVER make the mistake again of allowing an offensive coordinator to ruin their season. They could have gone back to back... and the Ohio State players knew it. But, if you look at the complete body of work and the losses by the one-loss teams in contention, Ohio State clearly had the weakest resume (comparing to OU, MSU, and Alabama). Ohio State really only had one quality win over a Michigan team, and lost in the head-to-head matchup against MSU. MSU then was able to add on a win over Iowa in the B1G title game. Oklahoma had a very odd loss to Texas, but after that had big wins over Baylor (on the road), TCU, and Okie State (again on the road). Again they had a better resume than Ohio State. The reason I like the playoffs at only 4 teams is that it still maintains the importance of the regular season. Stanford missed the playoff because they had a bonehead loss to Northwestern to open the season. The Ohio State-Michigan State loss wouldn't have meant anything to Ohio State if the playoffs were expanded to 6 or 8 teams. The Notre Dame-Stanford game at the end of the season would have been meaningless to Notre Dame if there was an 8 team playoff, which they would probably have been in.

There isn't Suh rookie contract money available for Collins if he were to come back for his senior season.

The committee failed this year. The committee claimed to be in favor of the best 4 teams playing in the playoff. If so, then that should have included Ohio State in the playoff rather than either MS or Oklahoma. The two best teams in the country this year are Alabama and Ohio State. Both should have been in the playoff. Unfortunately the playoff committee failed in it's responsibility. Hopefully the committee will make some changes in the future to stop this type of outcome. The sport really needs them to get this right. I agree that Ohio State and Alabama were probably the 2 best teams this season, however Ohio State blew their chance for their playoff spot when they lost to MSU at home when they faced a backup QB. The regular season games have to matter for something, so MSU deserved the bid over the Buckeyes.

You're not wrong, and any defense of "it'd be a shame if we forgot the Purdue game" will probably come off as more meaningful than I intended that to be. I guess what I'm saying is, that Purdue loss was the nadir of Husker Football - a disinterested team, a coach out of sorts, a program in disarray. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was the worst loss I can remember. Maybe we'll look back at it and say it was the beginning of the end for Riley. Maybe it'll be looked as as the turning point, where things got better. Regardless, it's an important game in Husker history. That's right. It was clearly a turning point. Anyone who didn't see a difference in this team after that game wasn't watching. So far that change has been for the better, but the jury is still decidedly hung The team was a different team after the Purdue game. However, it took a miracle play/referee call against Michigan State for NU to go even 3-1 in that stretch. What I am worried about Riley going forward is that he will start off slow every season with 2-3 losses in the first 1/2 to 2/3 of the year, and then he will "figure out his team" and finish on an upswing. In college football, every game is important, especially as NU moves to 9 conference games next year.

All this discussion about the offensive style is really moot unless the defense gets significantly better. McKewon had a pretty good rant on his podcast with Nyatawa this week in that if NU wants to be back to competing for conference and national championships, the defense has to be the one that leads the way.