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Harbaugh-Riley; who's the better coach now?

Walk_On_Reject

By Walk_On_Reject,
in Husker Football

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zoogs Head Coach

zoogs

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Wolverines putting a hell of a licking on BYU now.

 

Of course, it's possible Michigan had much better recruiting and roster management up to this year and that they just got Hoked. I don't know.

 

The other possibility is that Harbaugh, who has won everywhere else he's been, is a damn good coach and will show it early and often. I'd love to see that not be true. But it might be.

 

You'd hope Riley could be...let's say, Dantonio level. I think that's a fair expectation, or perhaps, where Wisconsin has been built up to in recent years. Some very good teams and programs in pretty good shape (although I'm not sure about Wisconsin anymore, but it was for a while).

 

Those measuring sticks for Riley's tenure won't change whether Harbaugh turns out to be the next Will Muschamp, or the next Urban Meyer. Though I just have to hope it's the former.

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Bigred_inSD Backup

Bigred_inSD

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Let's say harbaugh and Riley have similar records over the next 3 years. 9 to 10 wins a season. Nebraska has a much weaker west to go through to get to conference championship games as Michigan has to go through Ohio state and Michigan state.

 

Also the NFL will probably come calling for harbaugh again, Riley won't get those calls.

 

Lastly, which coach is more likely to wear out his welcome if conference championships and national championships don't come?

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It'sNotAFakeID Heisman Winner

It'sNotAFakeID

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Objectively, both teams played BYU and so that should give a good comparison point between two coaches. But that's simply not what we have. BYU did not have Taysom Hill at QB for their game against Michigan and even though Tanner Mangum showed good composure and ability against Boise State and UCLA, fact is he's still a freshman and there was bound to be some regression to the mean. He wasn't going to go out and set the world on fire in every one of his starts.

 

Also, if you want to have a perfect comparison of the coaches, every other factor has to be equal between the two. They're not. Michigan undoubtedly has more talent at their disposal than Nebraska and that's naturally going to make Harbaugh look a lot better than Riley.

 

Obviously, everybody knew that Harbaugh was and is a pretty good coach. He won at Stanford and he won in San Francisco. Riley didn't produce the same level of results at Oregon State and in San Diego. Those are truths, and that makes it easier for us to declare that Harbaugh is a better hire than Riley.

 

None of this is to say that Harbaugh will always be a better coach than Riley, but I think the more important question is: why do we even care? There was a 0% chance that Harbaugh was going to coach at Nebraska and so drawing comparisons between the two like we passed over Harbaugh for Riley is a little silly. About the only question we should care about is: Is Mike Riley the right coach for Nebraska? The jury's still out on that question as we are still very early into his time here.

 

I certainly hope he is; it's fun to root for a guy who is genuine and open, honest and humble.

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