Worst CFB Hires of the Past Decade

RedSavage said:
There was nothing good about the Riley hire
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I was never for the hire....to put it mildly. But I also wouldn’t say there was nothing good in retrospective. Solich, Callahan, and Pelini all divided the fan base because the decisions surrounding those coaches could plausibly be argued in either direction. 

Riley, however, had no backers by the end. Everyone wanted him gone. He also introduced rock bottom to a fan base that previously thought 7, 8, 9 wins was bottom. That gave perspective and that gave Frost time. Riley was the biggest bargaining chip Frost had when securing a contract principally constructed to ensure neither party tried to pull the plug early. It meant the University had to make the changes necessary for a long term plan.

People are not generally rationale creatures. Sometimes the world has to burn to get our attention. Riley was the match. 

 
brophog said:
I was never for the hire....to put it mildly. But I also wouldn’t say there was nothing good in retrospective. Solich, Callahan, and Pelini all divided the fan base because the decisions surrounding those coaches could plausibly be argued in either direction. 

Riley, however, had no backers by the end. Everyone wanted him gone. He also introduced rock bottom to a fan base that previously thought 7, 8, 9 wins was bottom.
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I'd put Callahan in the same category as Riley, not with Solich and Pelini. About the biggest difference between Riley and Callahan is that Callahan managed to have two pretty good years in the middle instead of just one. But both failed to even reach a bowl game in their first and last seasons. Callahan's rock bottom was just barely better than Riley's, and far below Pelini's. As for Solich, well, 2002 happened. In hindsight, it may not have been as bad as Callahan or Riley, but it was probably more shocking than either of those.

I guess from a broader perspective, you could make a case that Callahan was a good coach, he just had no business being a Nebraska coach, and probably not even a college coach. Riley, well, I guess he was a serviceable coach for a program with no real expectations or aspirations, but that's about the best you can say about his abilities.

 
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brophog said:
Riley, however, had no backers by the end. Everyone wanted him gone. He also introduced rock bottom to a fan base that previously thought 7, 8, 9 wins was bottom. That gave perspective and that gave Frost time. Riley was the biggest bargaining chip Frost had when securing a contract principally constructed to ensure neither party tried to pull the plug early. It meant the University had to make the changes necessary for a long term plan.
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Moos could have used Riley as a bargaining chip too.  "Scott, if you don't come back to your alma mater we'll keep Riley".  It's kind of a game of chicken at that point.

 
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Danny Bateman said:
I mean, it's not propaganda, it's just my own opinion.

By the end of Bo's era I was sick as hell of him playing the "us against them" card and crapping on the fan base. I remember the hot mic and the team meeting before he left. It was pretty clear to me he cared about the players, but is was also clear his style of motivating them had players so afraid of making mistakes and consequently getting reamed a new one that they played scared and ultimately led to a lot of blowouts in big games.

His on-field demeanor was beyond embarrassing by the end. But I don't have a problem with him (or Riley, for that matter) as a person.
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Nothing he said in that offended me, I thought the exact same thing about all the people leaving in the 3rd quarter, eff um, still to this day I don't give a crap.  He had every right to feel that way. 

False, omg a coach got super mad, who cares, anyone who did is to sensitive. 

 
Enhance said:
It's not a false narrative but a matter of perspective - there was/is a large part of the fan base that was embarrassed by Bo, disappointed in his personality and disappointed by his on-field results. His firing was met with more support than opposition, whatever that percentage might've been. Overall, though, I agree that I think Riley harmed this program greater than BP ever did.
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I would argue that is false until the end of time.  The large contingent of my friends that are fans would agree 4 out 5 that the firing was idiotic. 

 
Enhance said:
His firing was met with more support than opposition, whatever that percentage might've been.
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Yep, there was so much "support" that Perlman had to make solo maneuvers to get it done.

 
KingBlank said:
I would argue that is false until the end of time.  The large contingent of my friends that are fans would agree 4 out 5 that the firing was idiotic. 
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I think Bo had a lot of fan support, or at least fans who weren't ready to fire him in 2014. Those fans were nicer than Bo deserved. Bo was wrong about the crowd at the Ohio State game. Nebraska fans are actually pretty smart about what makes good football. 

And the firing was by no means idiotic. Bo did not want to be at Nebraska and had his agent fishing for every college vacancy since 2011. It wasn't that he was mean, or used bad words, or that people were too sensitive. It's that he valued loyalty above all and mistrusted anyone who might challenge him. He circled the wagons and turned his team against their own fans. He was an a$$h@!e in 2003, too.

And if firing the coach with the 9 win magic was idiotic, Bo Pelini would have been swept up by another Power 5 school, rather than pulling his same tired schtick at Youngstown State on the way to a 27 - 22 record. 

 
Guy Chamberlin said:
I think Bo had a lot of fan support, or at least fans who weren't ready to fire him in 2014. Those fans were nicer than Bo deserved. Bo was wrong about the crowd at the Ohio State game. Nebraska fans are actually pretty smart about what makes good football. 
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Most fans were probably smart enough to realize that something wasn't right after watching annual record breaking losses to Wisconsin.  It became apparent to me that it was less important to be competitive against good teams like OSU than it was to get 9 wins.   Bo had 7 years to show what he could do and it was that he could win 9-10 every year with a couple of blowout losses, bouncing in and out of the top 25.  Championships would be rare.  Not bad but also not great.  Also, not someone you replace with a .500 coach.

 
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