What did everybody expect in Mike Riley?

[GOAT]

I expected him to assemble a championship-caliber staff. Instead, he brought in his old buddies. FAIL

 

I expected us to play clean, disciplined football. FAIL

 

I expected him to maximize our strengths and minimize our weaknesses. FAIL

[GOAT]

I knew it was a bad hire from day one. I predicted 7-5 this season and got called every name in the book. Turns out 7-5 was pretty optimistic. Now 3-9 is more likely.

 

I predicted 9-4 and the same happened to me. I was basically run off another board for being too pessimistic/negative regarding the hire.

[lo country]

I expected a small step back this year but nothing worse than 7-5 then after a couple of seasons we would be 9-4/10-3 and our coach wouldn't be a giant a-hole. Certainly not a homerun hire but it wouldn't move the program in the wrong direction. We're not going to be bowl eligible this year while this team absolutely has enough talent for 6 wins.

 

The crazy thing....we're three plays away from being the worst undefeated team in the country at 5-0.

Or from being 1-4..... That's the scary part.

[BoNeyard]

Honestly, you'd think a staff with this much experience, coming from a resourceless program like Oregon State would at least get to 8 wins coming into Nebraska with the talent and resources Nebraska has.

 

I dont think 8 wins with th experience of this staff is asking too much with this schedule. And I would be fine with 8 wins under Riley's first year. 8 wins is now not going to happen. 7 wins probably wont happen.

 

It is most likely Nebraska wont see a bowl game this year, which coincidentally last occurred during Callahan's last year.

 

On the bright side, Riley is quickly catapulting himself into Nebraska record books, first opening day loss in what? 30 something years. Firt time losing to Illinois since 1920's. Probably only second time in how many years Nebraska doesnt make a bowl game? Why not continue the record breaking year and be the first one and done coach in Nebraska history.

[walksalone]

I thought he could at least beat Illinois....

[Igetbored216]

Yesterday was bad. The way we chucked the ball downfield in the wind and rain is about as easy a way to identify a moron for a coach as you can find. No two ways about it. I support this team and these coaches still, but I won't try to defend things like this. They will move on and things will get better or I won't give two sh#ts if we move on. You don't do what we did yesterday, you just don't. I lost a ton of respect for these guys' careers and resumes'. As a coaching staff, you don't go through the week preparing for a game like that, hearing all about the weather, and carry that game plan and those play calls into the game.

 

This staff had better learn how to run the ball. We have shown we can do it. We f'ing' hand it off to Newby 40 times against Southern Alabama in some sort of attempt to send a message that we were committing to the run game and showing we could do it. Then we open Big Ten play, in Hurricane winds, and we go Peyton Armstrong mode.

 

I got to believe Riley is smarter than that, but maybe he's not. I'll tell you this though, Langsdorf doesn't get the benefit of the doubt with me anymore. That is the worst offensive playcalling I've seen maybe ever. No, I'm not over-reacting, I'm not emotional about it and my Sunday is carrying on just fine. Great day for me. I'm just calling it like it is. That looked to me like an offense that was doing everything they could to piss the game away, and I find that pathetic.

I have very little hope that this staff will commit more to the run game when they refused to do so when the weather conditions were less than ideal for passing the ball.

[74Hunter]

 

 

I knew it was a bad hire from day one. I predicted 7-5 this season and got called every name in the book. Turns out 7-5 was pretty optimistic. Now 3-9 is more likely.

I predicted 9-4 and the same happened to me. I was basically run off another board for being too pessimistic/negative regarding the hire.

Odd how that happens.

[Arch Stanton]

Hi there, Husker fans. I saw this discussion and thought I might be able to share some insight about Coach Riley. I'm not here to kick you while you're down. As a Beaver fan, I get enough of that from Ducks fans, so I know how crummy that feels, and I would't do that to others. I also have some questions as they relate to some of the comments here. I hope they are taken in the spirit they are asked in: one of genuine curiosty, not me trying to be a smart alec d-bag.

 

"The loss to IL yesterday is just business as usual for Mike Riley. I am sorry what did everybody expect was going to happen with this program with his hiring? His first year at San Diego he was 8-8 and the next two years he went 1-15 and 5-11. After being fired he went to Oregon St. and out of 14 years he had only 8 winning seasons, last year going only 5-7. Somehow Shawn Eichorst thought if we uproot the guy who can't win anywhere else, spread some pixy dust and unicorn farts around, he is going to make us a powerhouse team again. [...]"

 

Is it possible that the powers that be pressured Eichorst to go with a coach who's the complete opposite of Pelini — a man who had no filter, and bascially spat in the collective faces of NU admin and the fans who support this team — and go with a "nice guy" who wouldn't ruffle so many feathers, even if he wasn't the best coach to get the job done in every other aspect of the game? I'm not trying to defend Riley's work or the results from it. I'm just curious if the main thing that appealed to Eichorst and his bosses was that Riley is the complete opposite of Pelini? Because you're right, based on his coaching record, one has to wonder what else Eichorst and company saw in him.

 

 

 

At first, very little. Then I talked myself into some optimism. Now, less than ever.

"I would agree with this. At first I was like, "not a good hire". Then posters on here and other people started to talk me into it a little. "Okay, maybe he's not so bad. Maybe he just needs the resources and some good coaches around him". Then he hired Banker and some other crappy coaches and I was like "Not good, not good". [...]"

 

 

I'm afraid to tell you this, but this is par for the course with Riley. As mush as I admire loyalty to friends and employees who do a good job, Mike Riley is insanely loyal to those around him — almost to a fault, really.

 

I can’t really speak to the qualifications of each and every coach for the team, but I’m familiar with Danny Langsdorf and Mark Banker. What I can say, though, is that overall Coach Riley and his coaching staff are like one big family, and he is fiercely loyal to them. This is especially true with him, Langsdorf, and Banker. And I’m sure that over time he will become fairly close with the rest of his staff as he gets to know them, and he will be as loyal to them as he is to Langsdorf and Banker.

 

Overall, especially in this day and age, loyalty is something I have a great deal of respect for. But the problem Coach Riley has is that he seems to be unable to compartmentalize his professional and personal relationships with his staff. I completely understand the desire of anyone to maintain their integrity by not throwing their friends under the bus — Coach Riley’s integrity as man is by far his best trait. Nobody wants to turn their back on their friends. I get that. But Mike Riley seems to be unable to separate business relationships from personal relationships and, as a result, it's virtually impossible for him to see faults in his friends. This, in turn, leads to him being unwilling to hold them accountable for their shortcomings or outright mistakes — no matter how many they make, or how often they make them.

 

Yesterday was bad. The way we chucked the ball downfield in the wind and rain is about as easy a way to identify a moron for a coach as you can find. No two ways about it. I support this team and these coaches still, but I won't try to defend things like this. They will move on and things will get better or I won't give two sh#ts if we move on. You don't do what we did yesterday, you just don't. I lost a ton of respect for these guys' careers and resumes'. As a coaching staff, you don't go through the week preparing for a game like that, hearing all about the weather, and carry that game plan and those play calls into the game.

 

This staff had better learn how to run the ball. We have shown we can do it. We f'ing' hand it off to Newby 40 times against Southern Alabama in some sort of attempt to send a message that we were committing to the run game and showing we could do it. Then we open Big Ten play, in Hurricane winds, and we go Peyton Armstrong mode.

 

I got to believe Riley is smarter than that, but maybe he's not. I'll tell you this though, Langsdorf doesn't get the benefit of the doubt with me anymore. That is the worst offensive playcalling I've seen maybe ever. No, I'm not over-reacting, I'm not emotional about it and my Sunday is carrying on just fine. Great day for me. I'm just calling it like it is. That looked to me like an offense that was doing everything they could to piss the game away, and I find that pathetic.

 

One of the biggest problems we saw here in Corvallis with Mike Riley was his unwillingness to adjust to his players' strengths and weaknesses. To be fair to Coach Riley, for the majority of his tenure at OSU, he was working with players he recruited, so in theory, they should have been able to play his system. And he shouldn't have had to made any significant adjustments to their skills and playing abilities (again, in theory).

 

The reality we got was a coach who was unwilling — or maybe just unable to see the need for it — to make the necessary adujustments to the system he ran based on his players strengths and abilities. This applied to both the overall season, but in any given game, too. One his his biggest weaknesses — and the same goes for Langsdorf and Banker as well — was his inability to make in-game adjustments. Instead, he thought if he just ran the same plays enough times, then the players would adjust and execute them correctly.

 

As a question more out of curiosity than anything else, can you tell me if Coach Riley is the play caller for the offensive side of things? When he was here in Corvallis, he was the play caller when they were on offense, not his OC Danny Langsdorf. From what I understand, that’s rare in college ball. Coach Riley is well known for running the “pro-style” offense. What you’ll see is he likes to combine plays of running the ball for short yardage with short pass routes so he can set up some sort of long-bomb pass play later. But overall, his teams have been teams that get most of their yardage from passing rather than the run game.

 

I'm not familiar enough with your QB, but I'm not sure this kind of system is the best for him. And given that he's so late into his time there at Nebraska, it just seems to me that Riley and company would be better suited to adapting their system to Armstrong and the players he has supporting him rather than trying to force them to play a system that doesn't utilize their skills and abilities to the fullest extent. Maybe it would be best to run a system that compliments Armstrong's skills (and the rest of the team for that matter) and gradually phase in the system he wants to implement as he gets more of his own recruits in the system?

 

This is a staff, that worked an hour away from the machine in Eugene...For 7 years they got their behinds handed to them and they never seemed to fix the problem. They had one close game against their biggest rival in 7 years. Oregon ran the same thing over and over for those 7 years.....you knew what Oregon was going to do. Riley and this very same staff, never seemed to remotely figure it out.

 

 

This was a HUGE point of frustration for Beaver fans. And as I mentioned above, Coach Riley was never good at making adjustments based on the skills and abilities of his players or based on what his opponents were throwing at him. Not during the game, and not through the course of the season. I hope that this will be something he can learn to do in Lincoln.

 

I expected him to assemble a championship-caliber staff. Instead, he brought in his old buddies. FAIL

 

I expected us to play clean, disciplined football. FAIL

 

I expected him to maximize our strengths and minimize our weaknesses. FAIL

 

I addressed your first and third points above. So I'm afraid there's not much hope there. Sorry, GOAT.

 

Clean and disciplined football? Well, I'll say that Riley generally runs a clean program, and he expects his players to play a clean game. And for the most part they play a clean game. They tend to have very few "dirty play" penalties (i.e., late hits, hits to the head, etc.). His teams, however, tend to be very undisciplined overall when it comes to procedural penalties like offsides, delay of game, illegal formation, too many men on the field, etc.. Have you guys seen a lot of this in their games so far?

 

 

Honestly, you'd think a staff with this much experience, coming from a resourceless program like Oregon State would at least get to 8 wins coming into Nebraska with the talent and resources Nebraska has.

 

I was really hoping that with the kind of resources that UofN would provide to Coach Riley that he would make a go of things there. And maybe he will. I can't say for sure. Many of his defenders here in the PNW have said many times over how great he was based on the fact that he did as much as he did for OSU given how little OSU provided to him. And to some extent that's a fair defense. OSU notoriously failed to provide Coach Riley the support that any coach at a major university should be given if they want their football program to be one that's respected and can be considered a legitmate competitor with the rest of their conference. (This is the main reason I want to see him do well there in Lincoln. As I mentioned in another post, it would be a nice F-you to Ed Ray and his lap dogs that failed to properly support Coach Riley.)

 

That having been said, there are a lot of things that Coach Riley deserves to take heat for — lack of discipline, poor play calling, poor clock management, etc. — that have nothing to do with whether he has the full support of the univeristy administration and the team's fanbase. I have no doubt he has the support a coach deserves to have there in Lincoln. Whether he takes advantage of that support and makes the most of it is yet to be seen.

 

 

Yesterday was bad. The way we chucked the ball downfield in the wind and rain is about as easy a way to identify a moron for a coach as you can find. No two ways about it. I support this team and these coaches still, but I won't try to defend things like this. They will move on and things will get better or I won't give two sh#ts if we move on. You don't do what we did yesterday, you just don't. I lost a ton of respect for these guys' careers and resumes'. As a coaching staff, you don't go through the week preparing for a game like that, hearing all about the weather, and carry that game plan and those play calls into the game.

 

This staff had better learn how to run the ball. We have shown we can do it. We f'ing' hand it off to Newby 40 times against Southern Alabama in some sort of attempt to send a message that we were committing to the run game and showing we could do it. Then we open Big Ten play, in Hurricane winds, and we go Peyton Armstrong mode.

 

I got to believe Riley is smarter than that, but maybe he's not. I'll tell you this though, Langsdorf doesn't get the benefit of the doubt with me anymore. That is the worst offensive playcalling I've seen maybe ever. No, I'm not over-reacting, I'm not emotional about it and my Sunday is carrying on just fine. Great day for me. I'm just calling it like it is. That looked to me like an offense that was doing everything they could to piss the game away, and I find that pathetic.

I have very little hope that this staff will commit more to the run game when they refused to do so when the weather conditions were less than ideal for passing the ball.

 

 

I wouldn't get your hopes up too high on this one. Mike Riley's teams have pretty much always been teams that rely on the passing game for most of their yardage. They're relied on the run game to the extent that it's needed to create some doubt as to whether it will be a pass play or a run play. As much as Coach Riley's coaching abilities leave a lot to be desired at times, at least he knows enough to know you can't pass the ball every single play. But don't count on him ever relying on the run game that Nebraska has become so accustomed to in years past. Sorry, Igetbored216.

 

Part of the problem is that OSU created an attitude in Mike Riley's mind that winning doesn't really matter. It created an attitude in him and his staff that all they really needed to do was to try their best and to try to get to a bowl game. Any bowl game. And you can see this in his “Oh, golly gee, we tried our best out there” attitude. (You've probably seen this in his post-game press conferences.)

 

The fact that his contract here guaranteed him another year as long as he took the team to a bowl game — any bowl game, and he didn’t even have to win it — should give you an idea of what kind of expectations the university put upon him. He was never held to any significant level of accountability at OSU; this had a trickle-down effect, and he never held any of his staff accountable, either. So he isn’t exactly used to being held to the level of expectations Nebraska football will have of him. I hope for his sake he learns this quickly.

 

I think the best thing that Eichorst and other members of UofN administration can do at this point is to let Mike Riley know that he's not in Corvallis anymore. They need to let him know that the university and its fans expect a lot more than was ever expected of him in Corvallis. And above all else, they need to let him know that unlike in Corvallis, in Lincoln, he and his staff will be held accountable for their performance. I think part of the problem is that Coach Riley has become so accustomed to low expectations and zero accountability that medicority has become the norm for him without ever realizing that he needs to be so much more than a mediocre coach who leads his team to a .500 season (or maybe a game or two above it).

 

I know that this post seems like I'm really just here to bash Coach Riley. All I'm trying to do here is shed some light on the guy for you folks. Like I said before, I really hope he does better in Lincoln than he did here in Corvallis for the reasons I mentioned before.

 

Good luck, you guys!

 

Note: This post was edited to correct some spelling and grammar errors and to add a few closing comments.

[Igetbored216]

 

 

Yesterday was bad. The way we chucked the ball downfield in the wind and rain is about as easy a way to identify a moron for a coach as you can find. No two ways about it. I support this team and these coaches still, but I won't try to defend things like this. They will move on and things will get better or I won't give two sh#ts if we move on. You don't do what we did yesterday, you just don't. I lost a ton of respect for these guys' careers and resumes'. As a coaching staff, you don't go through the week preparing for a game like that, hearing all about the weather, and carry that game plan and those play calls into the game.

 

This staff had better learn how to run the ball. We have shown we can do it. We f'ing' hand it off to Newby 40 times against Southern Alabama in some sort of attempt to send a message that we were committing to the run game and showing we could do it. Then we open Big Ten play, in Hurricane winds, and we go Peyton Armstrong mode.

 

I got to believe Riley is smarter than that, but maybe he's not. I'll tell you this though, Langsdorf doesn't get the benefit of the doubt with me anymore. That is the worst offensive playcalling I've seen maybe ever. No, I'm not over-reacting, I'm not emotional about it and my Sunday is carrying on just fine. Great day for me. I'm just calling it like it is. That looked to me like an offense that was doing everything they could to piss the game away, and I find that pathetic.

I have very little hope that this staff will commit more to the run game when they refused to do so when the weather conditions were less than ideal for passing the ball.

 

 

I wouldn't get your hopes up too high on this one. Mike Riley's teams have pretty much always been teams that rely on the passing game for most of their yardage. They're relied on the run game to the extent that it's needed to create some doubt as to whether it will be a pass play or a run play. As much as Coach Riley's coaching abilities leave a lot to be desired at times, at least he knows enough to know you can't pass the ball every single play. But don't count on him ever relying on the run game that Nebraska has become so accustomed to in years past. Sorry, Igetbored216.

Yeah, I just said that...

[CheeseHusker]

A nice guy who finishes last.

[74Hunter]

Thanks for the turd in the punch bowl, Arch.

 

Sigh.

 

I ain't mad at you, I appreciate your post and thank you for it. But it didn't make me feel any better about the prospects heading forward.

 

But you seem cool, thanks again.

[Arch Stanton]

Thanks for the turd in the punch bowl, Arch.

 

Sigh.

 

I ain't mad at you, I appreciate your post and thank you for it. But it didn't make me feel any better about the prospects heading forward.

 

But you seem cool, thanks again.

 

 

Sorry, 74Hunter. It wasn't my intention to kick you while you were down.

[74Hunter]

 

 

Thanks for the turd in the punch bowl, Arch.

 

Sigh.

 

I ain't mad at you, I appreciate your post and thank you for it. But it didn't make me feel any better about the prospects heading forward.

 

But you seem cool, thanks again.

 

Sorry, 74Hunter. It wasn't my intention to kick you while you were down.

No problems, man. It's not you.

 

Reality sucks sometimes. Appreciate your insight.

[Arch Stanton]

 

 

Thanks for the turd in the punch bowl, Arch.

 

Sigh.

 

I ain't mad at you, I appreciate your post and thank you for it. But it didn't make me feel any better about the prospects heading forward.

 

But you seem cool, thanks again.

 

Sorry, 74Hunter. It wasn't my intention to kick you while you were down.

No problems, man. It's not you.

 

Reality sucks sometimes. Appreciate your insight.

 

 

Thanks for your kind words, man. I'll do my best to limit my posts here. As I mentioned in my bio, I view myself as a visitor here and as such, I will do my best to be respectful of the regular members here. I have no beef with Husker fans. You guys aren't like Ducks fans that disrespect anyone and everyone who isn't a Ducks fan and doesn't believe that the Ducks will win the naty every year before the season is even played. And I don't see you guys kicking others while they're down. But after my post, I can see how I might come across as kicking you guys while you're down. My apologies if I made anyone here feel that way. Like I said, I got no beef with Husker Nation and its fans. Good luck, Huskers.

[kbbccandyman]

A couple weeks ago I had the nerve to post on a RB thread that Mike Riley was an idiot and has no clue as what to do as a head coach. I would like to walk that statement back and replace it with ... Mike Riley is a master of inovation and will continue to find creative ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

 

The real sad part of this Riley experiment is there is a ton of talent on this team but Riley has no clue as how evaluate or utilize it. The players on the roster have to be completely demoralized at this point knowing that it does not matter how hard they work or how well they perform there is no way they will be able to escape the losers lounge as long as Riley and Company are running the show. And on the recruiting front Nebraska in becoming known as the place where great talent goes to die.

 

I'm not saying this to be able to say I told you so, but because the brand of football I loved so much thru the years has gone away, hopefully not forever ... that is up to the Nebraska Athletic Dept leadership. Riley is not the caliber for the Huskers. I think everyone knows it , Riley has proved it. The sooner they get rid of him the better ... hopefully the powers that be have already put together a search committee. A mid-season change is a painful thing to have to do, but my gawd the tradition is worth fighting for and the pain will fade as the tradition is restored.

 

Hoping Riley will change his ways is not a good bet as he has been like this for over 20-30 years. No easy solution on the horizon but the Husker Nation has the resources to turn things around ... I just hope the powers that be are committed to doing what needs to be done.