Grantland: Ranking College Football’s New Head Coaching Hires

I don't care what his "disadvantages" were. He had losing seasons in 3 of his last 5 years and lost to two FCS schools. That he is not highly regarded as someone to become the head coach at the University of Nebraska is hardly surprising.

 
I don't care what his "disadvantages" were. He had losing seasons in 3 of his last 5 years and lost to two FCS schools. That he is not highly regarded as someone to become the head coach at the University of Nebraska is hardly surprising.
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Whose job, exactly, was it to get those inferior players at OSU? The fact that some people use that point to defend MR is baffling. Inferior players with inferior record.
Apparently context has no bearing in a discussion like this. Riley either did or did not do better than Pelini at his last gig, and both situations are 1:1 equal in every way, so if he didn't do better, that's a failure on Riley's part.

Orrrr........

We could recognize that Nebraska doesn't have a larger, better-funded, better-positioned D1A school in their state, who gets free or near-free marketing aimed directly at the demographic the two schools are recruiting year in and year out. Nebraska isn't in an after-thought city in this state with no major airport for recruits to fly into. Nebraska isn't dealing with the worst athletic facilities in their conference. Nebraska isn't dealing with the smallest athletic department budget in their conference.

Nebraska wasn't dealing with most of the disadvantages Riley was dealing with at Oregon State, but let's completely ignore all of that, let's ignore that the PAC-10/PAC-12 has been a tougher conference than the Big Ten these past four/five years, let's ignore everything and just look at the bottom-line numbers alone.

Because context doesn't matter. Right?

 
Was it Aaron Semm? I think it was, but maybe I'm wrong. One of them guys on the radio after Riley was hired said coaching and trying to recruit to Corvalis would be like trying to recruit to Grand Island. The only difference being the state's big program would be 80 miles away, not 40. I think that's pretty telling.

 
I get that. But because it's not 1:1 does not automatically tip the scales that MR was a great hire. It's still debateable
He doesn't have to be a great hire. He has to be better than the guy he replaced. And if he can win nine games every season, occasionally vie for a conference title and once in a while sniff an upper-tier bowl, and do all that without: creating an unnecessarily hostile relationship between himself and the school administration, the press, the officials calling his games and a portion of the fan base; instilling in his players an "us vs. them" bunker (Bo's own word) mentality so much so that everyone outside the locker room, including fans, is "them;" not being a national punchline for his sideline outbursts; and not getting blown out each and every year he's here...

Well, if he can do that and only wins nine games per year, that's still a vast improvement over the guy he replaced. I'll take that in exchange for Bo.

 
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