Nothing frustrates me more than when people say Riley is "Callahan 2.0". About the only thing the two have in common is they run a pro style offense. Riley is embracing the tradition at Nebraska. He's allowing former players to help in practice, he gave out the blackshirts before the season started so we could avoid the "when will Bo give out the blackshirts talk?" throughout the season, and heck he's allowing Boyd Epley to help in the training room! I believe Sipple wrote an article before the season about Dantonio and Michigan State, and how just a couple years ago they were a 6-6 team, that we need to be patient.
And to anyone who says "You hire a .500 coach, you're going to be .500", you're being completely naive. It's been said time and time again Oregon State and Nebraska are two completely different programs, but apparently that doesn't mean anything to some people so let's use other examples. Can you imagine if a coach was consistently .500 or better at schools like Purdue, Iowa State, and Kentucky? They would be celebrated as the next up and coming coach. That's what Mike Riley did at Oregon State.
Being a Chargers fan, me as much as anyone should be pessimistic about Riley, this is the 2nd time he's coached one of my teams. But I'm not because I'm able to see that this guy can coach as good as anyone. He's not Bill Callahan, not even close. I truly believe that Mike Riley and his staff are going to do great things here at Nebraska, and when his time here is done, we're going to be on a better path than we were before he came here.
