New verse, same old song at Nebraska; No excuses for losses like this

[Saunders]

You wonder if Nebraska coach Mike Riley ever gets really ticked off. If he does, now is the time to at least show it to his team.

Transition year or not, multiple injuries or not, marginal recruiting the past three years or not, leftover virus in the heads of the players or not, the fact is the Huskers should never — and I mean never — lose to Illinois and Northwestern in the same season.

If the new coaching staff doesn’t understand those implications, somebody with a sense of history in the athletic department ought to point it out.

Illinois is flat-out bad at football, and has been for a long time. Doesn’t mean there are bad people there or anything like that. It’s just that football hasn’t been the school’s thing.

The Illini have two winning records in conference play in the past 20 years. Their Big Ten success rate the past five seasons is 20 percent. And if you subtract the titanic 14-13 win over Nebraska three weeks ago, it’s 17.6 percent.

Let those numbers burn into your Big Red-loving soul.

http://www.omaha.com/huskers/barfknecht-new-verse-same-old-song-at-nebraska-no-excuses/article_eb4aec61-62df-5d85-b0a7-9a3dbe599c16.html

 

[VectorVictor]

Agreed. And I can't fathom why people continue to defend his tenure as coach when Riley and his staff have shown nothing close to exhibiting what is necessary from a coach at Nebraska. Yes, Riley's staff has flirted with competence, but let's be honest--it's not going to get much better than this, even if you were to hand him a truckload of SEC bought-and-paid-for Blue Chip recruits. When you have coaches that can't figure out a competent gameplan against teams like Illinois, Northwestern, Southern Miss, and BYU...you don't deserve to coach at the FBS level, let alone one of the top collegiate football programs of all time.

One of the other posters mentioned that Riley may be our Howard Schellenberger (a la Oklahoma), and maybe we'll get lucky and Riley will retire at the end of the season after realizing what a colossal mess he's made of things. But I don't see any evidence to indicate where Riley is smart enough to even realize he's messing this program up, let alone realize he's helping set back this program by another 5-10 years (a la Callahan).

 

[lo country]

Not to mention, IIRC, we lose one more home game and it will be the first time in history we have a losing record at home.... Thanks experienced coach.

It's not 8 games. Its his complete body of work..... .536 prior to coming here and now career less than .500................

We are now playing to see who will be dead last in the west.... We are a dumpster fire. It;s not talent, its scheme and average coaches.

#hiretomherman

 

[lo country]

Agreed. And I can't fathom why people continue to defend his tenure as coach when Riley and his staff have shown nothing close to exhibiting what is necessary from a coach at Nebraska. Yes, Riley's staff has flirted with competence, but let's be honest--it's not going to get much better than this, even if you were to hand him a truckload of SEC bought-and-paid-for Blue Chip recruits. When you have coaches that can't figure out a competent gameplan against teams like Illinois, Northwestern, Southern Miss, and BYU...you don't deserve to coach at the FBS level, let alone one of the top collegiate football programs of all time.

One of the other posters mentioned that Riley may be our Howard Schellenberger (a la Oklahoma), and maybe we'll get lucky and Riley will retire at the end of the season after realizing what a colossal mess he's made of things. But I don't see any evidence to indicate where Riley is smart enough to even realize he's messing this program up, let alone realize he's helping set back this program by another 5-10 years (a la Callahan).

Yep. People really think recruits want to come here. I do not follow the recruiting, so I could be way off base, but I can almost guarantee we go 4-8 and get blown out by Iowa and MSU, this class dries up like blows away like dust in the wind.

The kids "who want to play for Riley" weren't knocking his door at Corvallis. Spare me the "facilities, fans crap" kids want to win, have a chance to play, compete.......Oh did I mention win?

 

[Mavric]

Transition year or not, multiple injuries or not, marginal recruiting the past three years or not, leftover virus in the heads of the players or not, the fact is the Huskers should never — and I mean never — lose to Illinois and Northwestern in the same season.

If the new coaching staff doesn’t understand those implications, somebody with a sense of history in the athletic department ought to point it out.

Illinois is flat-out bad at football, and has been for a long time. Doesn’t mean there are bad people there or anything like that. It’s just that football hasn’t been the school’s thing.

The Illini have two winning records in conference play in the past 20 years. Their Big Ten success rate the past five seasons is 20 percent. And if you subtract the titanic 14-13 win over Nebraska three weeks ago, it’s 17.6 percent.

Let those numbers burn into your Big Red-loving soul.

As for Northwestern, things have changed a lot since Gary Barnett performed the miracle of taking the Wildcats to the Rose Bowl in the 1995 season. Current coach Pat Fitzgerald — good coach, great guy — has done wonders in difficult circumstances, with hurdles to overcome in recruiting and with facilities.

Still, the Wildcats have lost more games among all FBS schools (651) other than Big Ten brother Indiana (655). And their all-time bowl victory total? Two.

At least Northwestern will get to play in a bowl this season.

OWH

 

[Mavric]

And he points out some ominous records if things don't turn around:

Nebraska has been to so many bowl games (51) it has trouble housing the trophies. But any need for an addition this season is in doubt. At 3-5, the Huskers must win three of their final four games to qualify.


In the two remaining home games, they will be underdogs — to No. 6 Michigan State on Nov. 7 and to No. 10 Iowa on Nov. 27.

Lose those two, and Nebraska ends up winless in home conference play for the first time in 54 seasons, and without a bowl bid for the third time in 47 years. And NU has five losses before November for the second time in 58 years.

 

[cornographic]

After the ILL loss, I was inclined to say, "fire the bums"--seriously. And it is particularly frustrating to lose once again at home to jNU, a team that has zero running game, very average receiving corp, and a frosh qb! The Air Armstrong experiment is somewhat of a mistake, IMO. Sure, he has improved, but we can't win games relying on TA's arm and our WRs' propensity for dropping the ball. I just can't believe we couldn't have run the ball vs jNU, or any other foe, if the coaches had any commitment to the run, which apparently they don't. It's just stupid. And BTW, did we ever find out what happened to Wilbon?

Riley was sold to us on the basis that he could maximize whatever "resources" were given to him, "coach 'em up" so to speak, and I daresay that has proven to be a load of crapola. We have plenty of talent to beat the ILL and jNUs of the world so it's ridiculous to be dropping these types of games. I'm also still very curious as to which member(s) of the coaching staff provides the motivation/fire for the team as it seems pretty clear what little fire the team has doesn't seem to be coming from Riley who's energy level appears to rival that of Dr. Ben Carson.

We really whiffed on getting McKwain, or Fuentes, or Tom Herman, all clear winners, but are now stuck in this bad movie rerun of "baby steps" rebuilding that we've been going through the last decade plus. I'd be inclined at this point to follow through with the "fire the bums" sentiment, by out their contracts again, and get Justin Fuentes signed for next season while he's still available, because he certainly will not be available by season's end. USC or The U, to name a few schools, will scoop that guy up in a NY minute for next year--he's a hot commodity.

Big Red football is pretty painful to watch these days and it's a hard pill to swallow.

 

[sd'sker]

Transition year or not, multiple injuries or not, marginal recruiting the past three years or not, leftover virus in the heads of the players or not, the fact is the Huskers should never — and I mean never — lose to Illinois and Northwestern in the same season.

OWH

that's a pretty stupid thing to say. i mean with all the parity these days and any given saturday and all that.

 

[cornographic]

And he points out some ominous records if things don't turn around:

Nebraska has been to so many bowl games (51) it has trouble housing the trophies. But any need for an addition this season is in doubt. At 3-5, the Huskers must win three of their final four games to qualify.


In the two remaining home games, they will be underdogs — to No. 6 Michigan State on Nov. 7 and to No. 10 Iowa on Nov. 27.

Lose those two, and Nebraska ends up winless in home conference play for the first time in 54 seasons, and without a bowl bid for the third time in 47 years. And NU has five losses before November for the second time in 58 years.

5-7, no bowl, is my guess. Though 4-8 wouldn't surprise either.

 

[RedRex]

Who in the Ath. Dept. is LEFT that would have any historical sense as it relates to football? Boyd Eppley maybe? Perlman has been fairly thorough in sterilizing influences which might interfere with his "vision".

 

[NebraskaShellback]

No bowl this year!

 

[It'sNotAFakeID]

I guess probabilistically these records probably won't be broken again for a while if they're broken this year?

I dunno, you have close games like we've had for what seems like the whole season, and you start to get into the land of "one play really would've made the difference." Like I've said before, we haven't done well in creating our own luck, but these are such fine margins in these games that you have to wonder how likely it will be to occur next season, or the season after that in the same fashion as it's occurred this season.

Just probabilistically unlikely, imo.