Why Mike Riley Didn't Succeed @ Nebraska

BIG ERN said:
If .500 Mike Riley came to Lincoln and turned us back into a consistently 9-10 win team in his first three years would have meant that Shawn Eichorst made one of the greatest and out of left field hires in the history of sports. Hiring a man who was coming off a 4-8 season and zero conference titles in 14 years.

Going back to a pro, west coast style offense after it failed miserably last time around with Callahan. Getting away from running the ball and playing any sort of defense. Keying in on West Coast ties to win in the Heartland of America. 

I just couldn't ever put my money on this man and those astronomical odds to get it done. Your turn, Moos. 

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I understand the point about Riley's lack of success at Oregon State.  I would only add that he was on the hot seat there at the time NU hired him away.  The guy peaked at OSU at least five years before that (and you could make a case it was in 2006, as the Beavers won 10, but they were also blown out a few times that season).  I just hope we're not on here posting about how Scott Frost was too great a risk in a few years.  I know I'm still not over hearing about how Gary Patterson wanted the Nebraska job.  I really thought he wouldn't even go back to his alma mater back then (K-State) because he was happy at TCU.  I suppose that still could have been true and he just recognized the potential of Nebraska.

The rest of your post gets a little silly, though.  No coach plans to have no running game, let alone no defense.  I'd bet the failure had more to do with preparation (S&C, type and number of techniques/schemes taught, nature of practices) than philosophy and play calling.  All coaches are going to utilize any and all recruiting connections they can to acquire talent, too.  California has been targeted by NU since the late sixties to great effect.  If I was going to pick on the Riley staff over personnel, I would point to how little they tried the JUCO transfer route.

p.s. - All hires carry some risk.  Riley built something from practically nothing in a major conference, starting in 1997.  That's a lot of experience at the highest level.  Scott Frost took a winless team and has them undefeated, playing for an AAC championship in only his second season as a HC, but UCF had not been a doormat in the years prior to 2015.  They went 21-5 in the conference under O'Leary in the two previous seasons (and notched 10 wins the season before in Conference USA).

p.p.s. - If I'm going to channel the original post and oversimplify things, I'd say that B1G football is much different than Pac-12 football (and I've shared stats to illustrate this over the course of several seasons now).  The transition was too much for Mike Riley and company, especially with extreme defensive changes, in a relatively short period of time.  There's also the matter of the conference having gotten tougher since NU joined.  We've thought that our Cornhuskers should be more competitive in it since leaving the Big XII.

 
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