Bo Pelini had to go and Mike Riley had to be hired

[NoLongerN]

Riley will have a tough road ... I see OSU, Michigan, MSU and Penn State as all getting better in the next five years. We will hopefully be better but that doesn't necessarily translate into wins IMHO. Riley will have to be a great coach because he will not beat these teams at recruiting in my opinion.

 

[zoogs]

I expect around 9 wins. But that doesn't mean I'll be pissed at less than that. Coaching transitions do not always go smoothly. If we win 7 I will still be optimistic about Riley as a coach as long as our losses were hard fought games. Now in year 2-3 if we are still only winning 7-8 games, my optimism will be gone.

Lots of people over the years have asked, would you rather have 9 wins every season or have 11+ win seasons where we play for (and sometimes winning) conference champions but also a couple crappy 7 win seasons sprinkled in. I would prefer the 11-win seasons + some crappy seasons option. So I'm okay if Riley wins 7 games the first season. That doesn't mean I expect that to happen.

Thank you!

I want Riley to take this program to a better place -- in total -- in the next three or four years than it has been.

 

[Landlord]

I don't totally know what people mean when they say leeway or perhaps people don't know what they mean when they say leeway.

We have been lucky enough to hire a head coach that was wanted by Bama and USC all within the last 10 years...a head coach that is clearly respected and that has about 30 years of coaching experience at the college and pro levels. Mix that in with a staff that has pro and college experience and a combined 100 years of coaching/playing experience.

I see your point, but it seems like you're operating under a pretense that all coaches are made the same.

Some coaches are great resurrectors of downtrodden programs. Some coaches are great managers of programs with unlimited resources. Some coaches are great at prolonged consistency, while some are great at riding more of a roller coaster to really high peaks occasionally.

The leeway is found in understanding and admitting that Mike Riley and co. have never been in this kind of a situation. Ask yourself, do you think Bill Snyder could coach Saban's Alabama teams to national championships? I personally don't, but does that take anything away from his status as an elite coach for what he's done resurrecting Kansas State? No way; what he did there was legendary, and unmatched by anyone.

So Riley should have leeway, because Riley is in uncharted waters. He's already proven to be a great coach at certain things, namely recognizing and developing under-appreciated talent into something special, and also for being a giant killer capable of pulling off monumental upsets with a team/school of scrubs. What we'll have to wait and see is if he is a great coach at pooling an elite amount of resources, at landing the players that every other major school is also competing for, and maintaining a championship level of performance.

Nobody has any kind of informed opinion on whether or not he will be able to do these things. It's all entirely guess work at this point.

 

[True2tRA]

I don't necessarily care for the word leeway either.

Riley gets no more "leeway" than any other first year HC. It can be a difficult transition and slapping expectations on a first year HC is silly and shows a sense of entitlement.

Lets see what we got, learn a few things about what the plan is going forward as far as depth chart and offensive/defensive systems, and move forward from there with our "expectations".

I get what you are saying...this might sound bad I am glad that Husker fans have a sense of entitlement, we have been fortunate enough to have so many great teams. I can't wait to get back to it.

I think Riley has been around the block enough to know there are expectations, big ones, at NU and I think he knows he can reach them.

Oh, I'm sure he knows all about us, and sometimes I wish we were a little different. Just because he knows about the expectations doesn't mean he can live up to them. I'd like to see a little bit of football before I even have a clue if he can or can't. I know this. I like his attitude, I like hearing the guy and his staff talk football. They know their stuff and they've proven it elsewhere. I want to give them a little time to prove it here, they deserve that and I think they'll get it regardless of our expectations and how we feel about the win/loss column after year one.

The prospect of them going out and winning that 9/10/11 games in their first year does have me excited as hell though. That'd be a thrill to watch. If they don't meet that mark, that's fine. It's a high mark.

 

[Saunders]

(see above for entitlement)

Folks, I gotta tell ya, this is Nebraska but this ain't your daddy and granddaddy's Nebraska. Until proven otherwise, we are an annual 9-4 team. Let's not jump the gun with the "Nebraska's back, and we're here to stay" stuff again. It didn't work the first time I heard it.

It's not entitlement.

However, first and foremost, I want to address something that just annoys the ever loving sh#t out of me. Namely, this ridiculous idea that Nebraska has this grandiose expectation of National Titles every season. Because honestly, that's crazy. Sure we want wins, but you have to understand where these 'expectations' are coming from...

http://www.offtackleempire.com/2015/7/23/9019339/nebraska-cornhuskers-mike-riley-bo-pelini-fired-huskers-football

 

[Saunders]

And I'll follow up with this. I like everything I'm hearing and seeing with Riley. But if Nebraska comes out and falls on it's face this year... It's not acceptable.

 

[knapplc]

Bo's termination wasn't just about the nine wins. It was about:

The bunker mentality
The blowout losses
The haphazard recruiting
The inexperienced coaching staff
The failure to win a conference championship
The inability or unwillingness to correct mistakes
The contentious relationship with fans & the media
The inability or unwillingness to embrace the public role of the head coach of the University of Nebraska

I could go on. He did quite a few things right. He did maybe an equal number of things wrong. Unfortunately for Bo, the preponderance of a Nebraska Coach's actions need to fall on the "right" side of things.

If Riley can't tip the scales to that side, he'll be out, too.

 

[QMany]

I like everything I'm hearing and seeing with Riley. But if Nebraska comes out and falls on it's face this year... It's not acceptable.

I agree.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

And I'll follow up with this. I like everything I'm hearing and seeing with Riley. But if Nebraska comes out and falls on it's face this year... It's not acceptable.

Who could possibly disagree with that?

We've seen Nebraska teams come out totally unprepared for big games like Texas '10 and Wisconsin II 2012, and for gimme games like Wyoming 2012 and McNeese State 2014.

We've seen them excel in turnovers and penalties and 7 of the worst defensive performances in Husker history.

Players even admitted they were under-motivated and/or unprepared.

I would like to see Riley's team come out and do none of this. That's not too much to ask.

I'm just saying that level of improvement and encouragement doesn't need to come with 9 or 10 wins to qualify as success.

Not in the first season, at least.

This is Mike Riley's last stand, and he left a comfy legacy and longstanding home to take a risk at a University where expectations are vastly higher. I want to see better play and more fun this year. Then I want to see how he does with his own recruits. Then, if warranted, I'll start getting chippy. But I really want to see some games played first.

 

[True2tRA]

Good Lord Saunders nobody said anything about expecting to win titles this year. That's not the expectations I was talking about. And no kidding if Nebraska falls on their face it won't be acceptable. The coaches nor the players will accept that. The athletic department, boosters, and regents won't accept it. Former players won't accept it. Somewhere below all of them the fans fall in line.

You're creating arguments nobody has made.

 

[Landlord]

If Bo could skate free in 2008 with 52-17 and 62-28 losses to Missouri and Oklahoma, Riley should be afforded the same luxury. You can make the argument that Bo inherited a worse situation, but that's kind of self defeating if you're also someone that thinks Bo created a toxic and unhealthy culture. The 2008 team had more talent, especially at runningback and quarterback, than Riley's first team will.

I don't expect that to happen, but it could, and it would be fine if it did.

 

[knapplc]

Short of murdering Faux Pelini (and his cat) on tape, Riley is going to survive this season. He'll have as long of a honeymoon period as his teams grant him, and that'll be based on wins, improvement, tangible progress.

 

[Paul in WI]

Riley was brought here as the program's healer and to leave the program in much better shape than the venomous mess that he inherited. I see Nebraska as a multi-year (and possibly multi-coach) rebuild. Riley may run out of time due to his age or our patience, but he will leave the program looking a lot closer to the Huskers that made me proud for so many years. As long as I see continued improvement from month to month and year to year, long live Mike Riley. I want a conference title and a NC as much as anybody, but I'm not going to pitch a fit if I don't get immediate gratification.

 

[JJ Husker]

Bo's termination wasn't just about the nine wins. It was about:

The bunker mentality

The blowout losses

The haphazard recruiting

The inexperienced coaching staff

The failure to win a conference championship

The inability or unwillingness to correct mistakes

The contentious relationship with fans & the media

The inability or unwillingness to embrace the public role of the head coach of the University of Nebraska

I could go on. He did quite a few things right. He did maybe an equal number of things wrong. Unfortunately for Bo, the preponderance of a Nebraska Coach's actions need to fall on the "right" side of things.

If Riley can't tip the scales to that side, he'll be out, too.

This^^^ So much this^^^I am really sort of getting fed up with people simplifying Bo's dismissal to 9 wins not being good enough. Hell, that isn't even simplifying, it's just plain wrong. At least in my eyes there was nothing wrong with 9 wins consistently, the more dire problems were how we lost, who we lost to, consistently losing 4, and a total disregard for making sensible adjustments and the latent hatred of anybody outside of the bunker. Anybody who says he was fired for winning 9 games per year is a f'n clown that doesn't understand jack.

 

[Saunders]

Good Lord Saunders nobody said anything about expecting to win titles this year. That's not the expectations I was talking about. And no kidding if Nebraska falls on their face it won't be acceptable. The coaches nor the players will accept that. The athletic department, boosters, and regents won't accept it. Former players won't accept it. Somewhere below all of them the fans fall in line.

You're creating arguments nobody has made.

What? I said that saying 7 wins is ok is accepting mediocrity, and you said:

It can be a difficult transition and slapping expectations on a first year HC is silly and shows a sense of entitlement.

Bo was fired because he didn't meet expectations both on and off the field. If he wasn't a d!(k, he'd still be here. If he'd won a couple rings, he'd still be here.

Expecting a certain performance level isn't entitlement whatsoever.