With the schedule next year

Nebfanatic said:
Well I doubt we will ever see if it is questionable judgement or not. I think the next guy is going to walk in here and do awesome (granted we get the right guy) with this team Riley put together, but I doubt he(MR) will ever get any credit. Not that it matters though, I'll be glad to see us headed in the right direction. I think we are getting there roster wise though we need to finish on important positions this class(OL) regardless of who the coach is. 
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I think you are giving more credit to Riley's recruiting results than he actually deserves.  There has been a lot of hype.  There have been some big time guys visit.  But the actual results have been significantly lacking the hype they've received.  

He's basically been recruiting at the same level Pelini was.  Neither of his two classes have been nearly as highly-rated as Pelini's best two classes.  This year's looked more promising early but has been languishing for months.  When we had seven (or so) four-stars out of about 10 commits on our way to a class of about 15, it looked like this class was really going to be the significant improvement that has been advertised.  Then we lost two four-stars.  Then we took a couple mid-three-stars.  Now we're probably going to be taking 19-20 instead of 15 which makes it tougher to keep pulling four-stars all the way through.  Then the season started.

Also, they have left us short of talent by not filling classes.  We started Fall Camp with 77 scholarship players.  They have failed to really even bother to try to recruit a couple JUCOs in each class to help fill in gaps.  It's been a long ways from the praise that has been heaped on it.

I'm sure the Riley apologists will like to say "well, if Riley hadn't been fired, this class would have been really good."  But it's hard to recruit top classes to Nebraska when you're competing for conference championships.  It's almost impossible when you're putting up .500 records.  

This class would be solid if we would have had a decent season.  But even then - by your statement - it would be another couple years before they would be contributing much (I don't agree with that but that's your story).  Thus you'd be expecting a couple more years of this same type of seasons before we could expect improvement.

I don't buy that.

 
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Mavric said:
I think you are giving more credit to Riley's recruiting results than he actually deserves.  There has been a lot of hype.  There have been some big time guys visit.  But the actual results have been significantly lacking the hype they've received.  

He's basically been recruiting at the same level Pelini was.  Neither of his two classes have been nearly as highly-rated as Pelini's best two classes.  This year's looked more promising early but has been languishing for months.  When we had seven (or so) four-stars out of about 10 commits on our way to a class of about 15, it looked like this class was really going to be the significant improvement that has been advertised.  Then we lost two four-stars.  Then we took a couple mid-three-stars.  Now we're probably going to be taking 19-20 instead of 15 which makes it tougher to keep pulling four-stars all the way through.  Then the season started.

I'm sure the Riley apologists will like to say "well, if Riley hadn't been fired, this class would have been really good."  But it's hard to recruit top classes to Nebraska when you're competing for conference championships.  It's almost impossible when you're putting up .500 records.  

This class would be solid if we would have had a decent season.  But even then - by your statement - it would be another couple years before they would be contributing much (I don't agree with that but that's your story).  Thus you'd be expecting a couple more years of this same type of seasons before we could expect improvement.

I don't buy that.
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I'm more talking about the young players I see playing on the field that I think have potential. Spielman, Jamies, Bryant, D. Thomas to name a few. The D backs aren't playing well right now but I think Bootle and Jackson have talent. There are more young players than that but the whole roster is pretty young. Next year we will be playing a lot more Sr. than we are this season. Not to mention I think guys like Guy Thomas and Avery Roberts can be good after a redshirt season. The numbers may look the same as Pelinis but I see Rileys recruits playing better or just as well as upperclassmen at a few different spots. 

 
Nebfanatic said:
I'm more talking about the young players I see playing on the field that I think have potential. Spielman, Jamies, Bryant, D. Thomas to name a few. The D backs aren't playing well right now but I think Bootle and Jackson have talent. There are more young players than that but the whole roster is pretty young. Next year we will be playing a lot more Sr. than we are this season. Not to mention I think guys like Guy Thomas and Avery Roberts can be good after a redshirt season. The numbers may look the same as Pelinis but I see Rileys recruits playing better or just as well as upperclassmen at a few different spots. 
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Yes, there are always guys that play well early.  Newby, Carter, Collins, Banderas, Gerry, DPE, Jones, Kalu, Morgan, Aaron Williams, Antonio Reed and others all played well early.  To be a significant upgrade you need to have more of that happening.  But I'm not sure it is.

 
skers44 said:
There is no way Riley would get 6 wins next year.

also Eichorst... WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU SCHEDULE TROY!? WHAT WOULD WE GAIN FROM IT
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Seriously, you're afraid of Troy State? We've played them before. Don't we always try to schedule the best of the mid-majors to boost our RPI in OOC cupcake games? Are you worried they'll be another Northern Illinois or South Dakota? A McNeese?

Wait, is this sarcasm?

 
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Mavric said:
Yes, there are always guys that play well early.  Newby, Carter, Collins, Banderas, Gerry, DPE, Jones, Kalu, Morgan, Aaron Williams, Antonio Reed and others all played well early.  To be a significant upgrade you need to have more of that happening.  But I'm not sure it is.
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I don't remember a Husker team playing this much youth in the recent past. Maybe I'm wrong but I have 2 questions for you..

Do you think the right coach can lead us to Indy in 2018?

Do you think Riley is leaving the roster in a bad situation for the next coach if fired after this season? 

 
Nebfanatic said:
I don't remember a Husker team playing this much youth in the recent past. Maybe I'm wrong but I have 2 questions for you..

Do you think the right coach can lead us to Indy in 2018?

Do you think Riley is leaving the roster in a bad situation for the next coach if fired after this season? 
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With as tough as our schedule is, I don't think Nick Saban himself could lead us to Indy in 2018.

 
Nebfanatic said:
I don't remember a Husker team playing this much youth in the recent past. Maybe I'm wrong but I have 2 questions for you..

Do you think the right coach can lead us to Indy in 2018?

Do you think Riley is leaving the roster in a bad situation for the next coach if fired after this season? 
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I don't think we'll be in Indy next year, regardless of the coach.  We'd probably have to be 7-2 (or better) to really expect to make it and I think expecting two or fewer losses from @ Michigan, @ Wisconsin, @ Ohio State, Michigan State and @ Iowa is not at all likely.  So I'd much rather have a new staff taking their lumps and installing their systems than one last dying effort from the current guys who've shown to perform well below low expectations.

I don't think the roster is is that bad of a situation.  Like we have for several years, we generally are out-talented by one team on our schedule, about the same talent as 1-2 other teams and more talented than the rest of our schedule.  I think we have plenty of talent to win the West, just like we've had for several years.  Not that we couldn't win the conference but we'd need a bit of an upgrade to regularly expect to win the conference.  We just need coaches that can do better with what we have to start really attracting the talent to get to that point.  Currently we are doing less than what our talent could accomplish.

 
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Why does everyone think next year's schedule is any more difficult than this year's? Oregon at Oregon is a tougher game than Colorado at home, no? And Penn State is better than Michigan. No cake schedule, but this season is rough, too. 

 
gorp512 said:
With how bad the Huskers are this year, they could play Alabama on the moon next season and it has the chance to be better than the disaster unfolding right now. 
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Sure. But it doesn’t make next year’s schedule less tougher than this year. I was just answering you question as to why people thought next year will be harder. 

 
How can we have that many road games in conference?  Sure, next season is a rough one just from looking at it now.  It will also be a recruiting tool to the right coach.  Look at where we are going and look at who we will play on national tv!  Those are all or nearly all primetime games!  Thats a big selling point to some.

Imagine if we get Frost, and he brings in some Florida kids from the start.  Those games are huge for recruiting.  Thats TV exposure, Espn game day material.  Those are things that sell big time kids into coming here.  

That schedule is not changing no matter who is coach, but I would much rather enter that fight with a different game plan from the start.

 
If we start the season winning against Troy and Colorado, the confidence this team would have entering those others would be much better than what we are doing this season.  Players have to believe in the system.  To gain that belief, you have to win non-con games and win those against MAC schools at a 100% rate.  UCF has gone out and won those games against B1G foes and any and all comers so far this season.  They have confidence to compete against anyone, and they will thru out this season.  Thats why Riley can't remain here.  He loses to many of these non-con games.  These non-con games are to gain confidence and work out bugs before the conference season starts.

He can't change his history.  Riley can't undo those previous season where his teams get beat by also-rans.  For every top 10 team he defeats, he lose at least 3 times to lesser teams.  That doesn't add up to winning football.

 
5 win season with a young and up and coming coach is a more exciting and more hopeful season then a 5 win season with a 66 year old head coach who has been coaching for 30+ years.

 
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