teachercd
Active member
I get what you are saying but at Oregon State he COULD keep those guys on staff because lets face it, there was really not the pressure from fans/press. It is kind of like Northwestern...the Chicago press is not spending a lot of time and resources on NW coverage and even though I have never checked I am guessing that the NW message boards are pretty dead.And for a lot of years after that, Banker was kept on Riley's staff. Obviously, Riley didn't view Banker as a bad coach for all those years or he wouldn't have kept him.Which was a lot of years ago, which goes to saunders' point.Riley had him on his staff at San Diego, keep believing your fantasies.Or he was seen as good enough for a lower-tier team in the defense-optional Pac-10 and Riley wanted to be loyal to a long-time friend but was exposed when the situation changed.Or Banker was adequate to good when he was hired, but then he didn't adjust his philosophy as offenses innovated, and he became a mediocre DC. Oregon State fans wanted him gone for years. Hell, they came over to this board told us he wasn't going to be good enough.I'm hardly stretching. It's stretching to think Riley would hire Banker if he thought he wasn't any good. Riley told us why he fired Banker and adding anything else to it, like "Banker just wasn't very good" is simply projecting your own opinion into the facts. Riley kept Banker with him for years when he didn't think he was a very good coach? Yeah, I'm not buying that one at all. Lol
And we know for a fact that Riley is capable of firing his friends if they aren't performing up to expectations.
At Oregon State...an upset of Oregon, USC, UCLA or Washington ALMOST buys you a free pass for the season.
Riley, not until his last season at OSU, didn't really have a ton of pressure to change assistants. Basically if he made a bowl game every other year he was pretty much fine.