Riley Supporters Are Wrong

[zoogs]

No, but ... what's wrong with a Prius?

 

[MichiganDad3]

I giggled a little when I read this:

You sit there and bash Kirk Ferentz. You scoff at Minnesota. You laugh at Illinois.

Right now, you’d trade places with any of those teams in a heartbeat.

Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois fans, have endured what we're just now experiencing, for years now. Yet, I'm pretty sure they weren't whining about it on the level we are, calling for mid-season firing, etc. We would have kicked Ferentz out, YEARS ago.

They were. The boards have been brutal to Ferentz for years and it's eerily similar.

For the first almost 20 years of T.O.'s tenure, he was ridiculed in lots of circles. "Why does Nancy give Tom his cereal in a cup....Because he chokes in the bowls"...."Why does it take Tom 3 hours to drive from Lincoln to Omaha.? ......Cause he's afraid to pass"...and so on. If there had been social media back then, he'd have never even made it to the 83 season, much less the 90s. Not saying Riley is the answer, but he is not going to be fired after 6 games, or one year, so on the outside chance there is more to the big picture than we can see, why not chill a little bit and see how things unfold.

On a more related note, I know several Hawkeye fans that are miserable in their success, knowing it solidifies Ferentz (Furnuts to them) and his position.

TO was criticized, but it was more about losing to Oklahoma than anything else. TO didn't have any real pressure until 1990-1992. For the first 16 years of TO's head coaching career the Huskers never finished ranked lower than 10th in either the coaches poll or the AP poll, and won 7 Big 8 championships. That is an amazing run. He felt pressure later because his final rankings from 1989-1992 were, 11,17, 15 & 14 and in 1992 he lost his 6th consecutive bowl. Five of the six bowls were BCS equivalent bowls. Mike Riley's best final ranking was 18th, and that was 7 years ago. His biggest bowl game was the Alamo bowl.

 

[nemajordude]

He got blown out in some games

Some games include: 52-17 against Missouri, 62-28 against Oklahoma, 31-10 against Texas Tech, (let's not forget 9-7 against Iowa State), 48-17 against Wisconsin, 45-17 against Michigan, 30-13 against South Carolina, 63-38 against Ohio State, 70-31 against Wisconsin (again), 41-21 against UCLA (after being up 21-0), 38-17 against Iowa, and 59-24 against Wisconsin (again).

The way the author put that is to discount those blowouts like there weren't that many, which is completely false. 11 blowouts in 7 years, that's a little over 1.5 a year, I don't think you'll find another Power 5 program who got blown out more during that time frame. Winning doesn't erase that.

Furthermore, perhaps Bo was right for outting the fans, and perhaps he's right about the administration (who knows?). But being right isn't always good (i.e., people who doubted the Mike Riley hire), and there was no person more responsible for creating a divide between fans and team than Bo and a few coaches on his coaching staff.

It's funny that if you look at Bo's years at Nebraska, from a qualitative perspective, 2010--Bo's 3rd year--was his best year at Nebraska, that 3rd year that I've been saying is so pivotal for figuring out what kind of coach you have. Mike Riley's went 5-6 in his 3rd year at Oregon State, which isn't a good sign of what he might do here (and has been documented and accepted as a legitimate criticism of the hire), and it's no surprise that his overall record at Oregon State hovered around that win percentage. It's also been documented and accepted that Nebraska is a little more advantageous place than Oregon State and perhaps Mike Riley will be able to do here what he couldn't do at OSU.

It's going to take patience, so if you have none, it might be more advantageous for you to spend time fishing rather than on the board.

Still in the denial phase. Only four more to go!

Point out what I'm denying.

The entire point of the article. (Hint: It wasn't about Bo.)

It kinda was.

 

[Count 'Bility]

Osborne was given an ultimatum prior the Bluebonnet bowl following the 1976 season at 8-3-1. Win the bowl or youre out. He won. And two years later finally beat oklahoma and at some point in that time seriously contemplated leaving Nebraska for Colorado. Lol

No pressure till 90. Lol. THERES ALWAYS PRESSURE. EVERYWHERE. Coaches get paid to win football games.

 

[BigWillie]

It's quite sad that we are more concerned with eating our own than anything else.

Honest question - if we fire Mike Riley after 1 year, what coach in this entire country, who is worth a damn, would want to coach at a school that will give him no chance to succeed? That's not even a HC, but it goes for assistant coaches as well. People like this writer, and some of our own fans, basically want our program to commit suicide by talking like this.

Look at the game on Saturday, we had fans within ear shot of some high profile recruits that were bad mouthing Riley and wanting him fired. It's just insanity that any real fan would want to hurt our program like that.

 

[Mierin]

And this is all I need to read:

Stopping trying to erase Bo Pelini. He happened. What he did was real. Lost some games. He got blown out in some games. He yelled. He called you out for leaving games early — you the fans who were supposedly more dedicated and passionate than any in the nation. He was right. He trashed the administration that fired him, and he did so in front of his former players. He was right. Those players are not children. They’re not boys. They are men, the same age as the men and women who wear your country’s military uniforms. They can handle the truth.

lol. Very few 18 year old males are mature. Same goes for 18 year old females. I'm guessing the ones who join the military mature pretty fast. The ones who join football teams that get as much attention as Nebraska does, probably regress in maturity.

 

[Hujan]

The fact that Mike Riley blows doesn't mean we should have kept Pelini. Pelini is an a-hole. I'm still happy he's gone. We could lose the rest of the games this year the way we have so far and the combined margin of defeat would still be less than any one of Pelini's three losses to Wisconsin by several magnitudes.

Riley needs to pull his head out of his a$$ and smack his coordinators upside the head, but keep the entire Pelini family as far from this campus as possible.

 

[GOAT]

It's quite sad that we are more concerned with eating our own than anything else.

Honest question - if we fire Mike Riley after 1 year, what coach in this entire country, who is worth a damn, would want to coach at a school that will give him no chance to succeed? That's not even a HC, but it goes for assistant coaches as well. People like this writer, and some of our own fans, basically want our program to commit suicide by talking like this.

Look at the game on Saturday, we had fans within ear shot of some high profile recruits that were bad mouthing Riley and wanting him fired. It's just insanity that any real fan would want to hurt our program like that.

Any coach worth a tinker's damn realizes what a total clusterf**k this program is right now. Coaches know our tradition and they know that the crap we've endured isn't acceptable. Throw enough $$ at a big-time coach and he will come. Alabama and Michigan have devised the perfect blueprint... if Eichorst wants to salvage his job he had better bite the bullet, admit his mistake, and redo it the right way.

And on the subject of Bo, I have just two words: F**k Pelini.

 

[dvdcrr]

I was given tickets to the Iowa game. In spite of all this, we plan on going. Why? Because its gonna be a good game! We arent that far off the hunt.

 

[suh_fan93]

Nebraska in my opinion has the talent to beat every team we've played so far. 12 returning starters from last year if you want to get technical. With all of the years experience that Riley and his coaches have on their resume's to see the mistakes from the sidelines right off the bat, the head scratching personnel decisions, the erratic play calling, the defensive play and play calling. I guess more than anything it just shows you that experience doesn't always mean being consistently good at your craft.

Riley's only hope so far could be the possible emergence of Patrick O'Brien who hopefully will not flip and be here next year. He seems to be the proto type quarterback to fit this staff's historical offensive identity. Westerkamp and Pierson-El will still be here. Then again it wouldn't be the first time a big time Nebraska QB recruit didn't pan out as expected so obviously he's going to have to come here still and prove himself. Beyond that it's not a mind blowing class but they deserve the benefit of the doubt until we can actually see them on the field or get practice reports. Regardless I don't see anything that gives me reason to believe this head coach and staff can turn it around and compete with the big boys of the B1G and that is what the fans truly want myself included.

 

[zoogs]

Nebraska's in a bit of disarray. Part of that is last year, part of that is this year. We would agree, I hope, to pull in the right direction and support the team's efforts to turn it around. This season is 2-4, but they've competed hard only to be hit by a highly anomalous amount of heartbreak. It's the same heartbreak the fans feel, but probably even moreso for the players.

 

[Lunchbucket]

This response in the article was interesting

Recruiting rankings from 2011-2015.

Florida is fielding players from #12, #3, #4, #8, and #23 ranked recruiting classes.

Michigan is fielding players from #21, #7, #5, #31, and #50 ranked recruiting classes.

Nebraska is fielding players from #15, #25, #17, #32 and #31

The difference is that Nebraska’s best class provides us with some redshirt seniors this year. However, of the stars in that class, Aaron Green transferred to TCU, Bubba Starling never enrolled opting to collect a $7 million check to play pro baseball, Mauro Bondi transferred to Hawaii, Ryan Klachko transferred to Illinois, Tyler Moore transferred to Florida, Todd Pete Jr transferred to a junior college, and finally Max Pirman and David Santos were kicked off the team.

The only players seeing the field from that class of seniors are:

Taariq Allen

Daniel Davie

Givens Price played one snap against South Alabama

Ryne Reeves

Zach Sterup saw snaps yesterday in place of injured Nick Gates

David Sutton was hurt against BYU and won’t be back until late november

Jamal Turner

Kevin Williams

I found this incredibly interesting so I looked up who the star players were that made up the other top 20 class to see who was still on the team.

Randy Gregory (left for the NFL)

Johnny Stanton (transferred to a juco)

Kevin Gladney (dismissed from the team)

Courtney Love (transferred to Kentucky)

Greg Hart (transferred to Kentucky)

Drake Martinez (transferred to Michigan State)

Earnest Suttles (dismissed from team and playing at Memphis)

also in that class currently in the program and getting significant time on the field:

Josh Banderas (out due to injury)

Kevin Maurice (out due to injury)

Kevin Williams (out due to injury)

So before you go spouting off about how easy Jim Harbaugh and Jim McElwain are making it look, just remember what Bo Pelini put in the cupboard.

I’ll take 4 losses by a total of 11 points over watching double digit losses to Ohio State (25), Wisconsin (31, 39, and 35), Iowa (21), Missouri (35), UCLA (20), Michigan State (13), Oklahoma (34), Minnesota (11), Georgia (14), South Carolina (17), Washington (12), Texas Tech (21), and Michigan (28) any day.

 

[AFhusker]

And this is all I need to read:

Stopping trying to erase Bo Pelini. He happened. What he did was real. Lost some games. He got blown out in some games. He yelled. He called you out for leaving games early you the fans who were supposedly more dedicated and passionate than any in the nation. He was right. He trashed the administration that fired him, and he did so in front of his former players. He was right. Those players are not children. Theyre not boys. They are men, the same age as the men and women who wear your countrys military uniforms. They can handle the truth.

It's 100% spot on.

If that is the case then why do a lot of people get butt hurt when people say that they aren't smart or not deserving of a scholarship to play division 1 football? What are they adults or kids? People who think this way can't say this (not aimed at you personally, just using your quote) without allowing the truth that a lot of the players on this team are not very good and people want to treat them like they are fragile pee wee age players.

 

[AFhusker]

This response in the article was interesting

Recruiting rankings from 2011-2015.

Florida is fielding players from #12, #3, #4, #8, and #23 ranked recruiting classes.

Michigan is fielding players from #21, #7, #5, #31, and #50 ranked recruiting classes.

Nebraska is fielding players from #15, #25, #17, #32 and #31

The difference is that Nebraska’s best class provides us with some redshirt seniors this year. However, of the stars in that class, Aaron Green transferred to TCU, Bubba Starling never enrolled opting to collect a $7 million check to play pro baseball, Mauro Bondi transferred to Hawaii, Ryan Klachko transferred to Illinois, Tyler Moore transferred to Florida, Todd Pete Jr transferred to a junior college, and finally Max Pirman and David Santos were kicked off the team.

The only players seeing the field from that class of seniors are:

Taariq Allen

Daniel Davie

Givens Price played one snap against South Alabama

Ryne Reeves

Zach Sterup saw snaps yesterday in place of injured Nick Gates

David Sutton was hurt against BYU and won’t be back until late november

Jamal Turner

Kevin Williams

I found this incredibly interesting so I looked up who the star players were that made up the other top 20 class to see who was still on the team.

Randy Gregory (left for the NFL)

Johnny Stanton (transferred to a juco)

Kevin Gladney (dismissed from the team)

Courtney Love (transferred to Kentucky)

Greg Hart (transferred to Kentucky)

Drake Martinez (transferred to Michigan State)

Earnest Suttles (dismissed from team and playing at Memphis)

also in that class currently in the program and getting significant time on the field:

Josh Banderas (out due to injury)

Kevin Maurice (out due to injury)

Kevin Williams (out due to injury)

So before you go spouting off about how easy Jim Harbaugh and Jim McElwain are making it look, just remember what Bo Pelini put in the cupboard.

I’ll take 4 losses by a total of 11 points over watching double digit losses to Ohio State (25), Wisconsin (31, 39, and 35), Iowa (21), Missouri (35), UCLA (20), Michigan State (13), Oklahoma (34), Minnesota (11), Georgia (14), South Carolina (17), Washington (12), Texas Tech (21), and Michigan (28) any day.

Yep Bo missed on 39% of his recruits which is why we have less talent than a place like Nebraska should have. Not to mention I am sure that it has played into our defense getting worn out in the 4th quarter since we don't have depth.

 

[BigWillie]

It's quite sad that we are more concerned with eating our own than anything else.

Honest question - if we fire Mike Riley after 1 year, what coach in this entire country, who is worth a damn, would want to coach at a school that will give him no chance to succeed? That's not even a HC, but it goes for assistant coaches as well. People like this writer, and some of our own fans, basically want our program to commit suicide by talking like this.

Look at the game on Saturday, we had fans within ear shot of some high profile recruits that were bad mouthing Riley and wanting him fired. It's just insanity that any real fan would want to hurt our program like that.

Any coach worth a tinker's damn realizes what a total clusterf**k this program is right now. Coaches know our tradition and they know that the crap we've endured isn't acceptable. Throw enough $$ at a big-time coach and he will come. Alabama and Michigan have devised the perfect blueprint... if Eichorst wants to salvage his job he had better bite the bullet, admit his mistake, and redo it the right way.

Are you certain it did not happen this offseason?

This offseason was the repeat after the Solich firing in terms of finding a coach.