Plus, Patterson was an assistant under francione and promoted from within wasn't he? Not really analogous.
Anyway, I don't think anyone is really disagreeing here. Good coaches win immediately, at the very least within the second year. We need to see real improvement from Riley and his staff, particularly regarding in game management.
This is the biggest concern I have. Riley struggled with game management at Oregon State, and he struggled last year at NU. The guy has been a head coach for ~20 years. I don't think he is all of a sudden going to improve in that area. He is basically who he is.
Agreed. I posted it a while back, but Hail Varsity did a great article in their yearbook on the importance of year 2, and how telling it is to success.
Basically, if we don't make a huge jump this year, than chances of ever being relevant under the current regime is very small.
Well it depends on your definition of "huge."
We definitely have the talent to win more than 6 games this season, but it wouldn't be shocking or unacceptable if our mercurial quarterback was not as good as Riley's hand-picked successor, or if an already suspect defense that lost its veteran leadership still needed time and talent to become championship-worthy.
A third season would be largely reliant on Riley recruits and two years into his style and system and assistant coaching adjustments. Let's see how that looks before deciding we would never be relevant again.