Year 4 Expectations

[All Hail Herbie]

Where did I ever mention we were devoid of talent, under-resourced, or scarce of facilities?  If you are drawing those conclusions from what I typed, you are not reading what was written. 

You can have the most talented kids in the world but if they doesn't know the plays, a mediocre group who does can win many of the battles.  My one, and only argument- We were very inexperienced last year and our coaches hands were tied a majority of the year.  This severely limited development and did no favors to team continuity on a fragile program in the middle of a re-build.

I don't accept when we are underperforming.  Neither does the majority of the rest of our fan base.  However, a good percentage of our fan base is reasonable enough to understand the circumstances surrounding why we are, who we are, right now, has been somewhat out of our coaches control.  If they don't show real improvement next year, the same argument won't fly and many more people surrounding the team will be unhappy, and rightfully so.       

My prior assessment of comments was based on what I see to be a general program portrayal by many these days (not a specific comment).  That whatever our shortcomings on the field are, they are simply outside of our control and that they are permanent and structural (not circumstantial).  

With the ongoing personnel attrition issues, one could make the argument that we will remain inexperienced in years to come.  My greatest concern is that we now tolerate failure in terms of our on-field performance and then rationalize it through various lines of argument (lack of experience, staff turnover, recruiting, personnel departures, etc.)

So long as our fanbase agrees that 5 years is adequate to measure whether or not the path we are on is the correct one, I can accept that.  In the short-term however, let's avoid rationalizing underperformance.

 

[All Hail Herbie]

Here's a quick view of what Mike Riley did in his 3 year run.

Took over a 9-4 team from a coach who won 70% of his games, including beating Iowa his last game as coach.

3 seasons later Mike Riley had Nebraska football at 4-8 with a 42 point loss to Iowa.

That's a STEEP drop in 3 seasons.

I think Frost has Nebraska football on a promising trajectory.

Debatable, but perhaps.  A 46 point loss to Michigan in 2018 or an 18 point loss to a poor Illinois team in 2020 are nothing to write home about either.  Not to mention one of the great embarrassments in coaching when the Illinois punter walked 30 yards for a first down in last year's game.

Agree that is was a steep drop, however have we actually come off the bottom?  Not sure we ever rebounded.

 

[TheSker]

Debatable, but perhaps.  A 46 point loss to Michigan in 2018 or an 18 point loss to a poor Illinois team in 2020 are nothing to write home about either.  Not to mention one of the great embarrassments in coaching when the Illinois punter walked 30 yards for a first down in last year's game.

Agree that is was a steep drop, however have we actually come off the bottom?  Not sure we ever rebounded.

We have slightly rebounded, but still close to the bottom.

Riley literally took a .700 program to a .333 program by the end of his third season.  Quite the accomplishment....

 

[TheSker]

As I remember it, Riley was most definitely expected to win more and better games than Bo Pelini. That's what he was hired. 

And when Riley tanked, Scott Frost was literally the only choice. Had the former Husker star coming off an undefeated season at UCF gone to any other team, we would have blamed 4-8, 5-7, and 3-5 seasons on not having Frost as our head coach.

Very true and good post.

 

[funhusker]

We just lost how many transfers theblast 4yrs because the kid wanted to be closer to home.  The players want to play for a winning team, if the home town team wins they'll stay.  That simple, win games keep the in state.

Sometimes kids want to get away even if it's "home".

I graduated in a class of 60.  There were some kids in my class that couldn't wait to get out of Nebraska.  I know of at least 2 that I'm still in touch with that have only stepped foot in the state to visit family over the past 22 years since graduating and moving to the coasts. 

Several more that haven't been back "home", but still live in Omaha (but that's beside the point)

 

[BigRedBuster]

We just lost how many transfers the last 4yrs because the kid wanted to be closer to home.  The players want to play for a winning team, if the home town team wins they'll stay.  That simple, win games keep the in state.

If we start winning, yes, it will be easier to keep the in state kids.  But, you still won't keep all of them.  TO didn't keep all of them either.

 

[Hilltop]

As I remember it, Riley was most definitely expected to win more and better games than Bo Pelini. That's what he was hired. 

And when Riley tanked, Scott Frost was literally the only choice. Had the former Husker star coming off an undefeated season at UCF gone to any other team, we would have blamed 4-8, 5-7, and 3-5 seasons on not having Frost as our head coach.

That is not why Riley was hired and we all know it.  He was hired to be the polar opposite to this-

And this-

And all the other coach tantrum BS.  

Right or wrong, Riley was hired to be a nice guy.  He had never proven he could win at a high rate and his last 4 seasons before coming to Nebraska were 3-9, 9-4, 7-6 and 5-7.  

 

[Redux]

If we start winning, yes, it will be easier to keep the in state kids.  But, you still won't keep all of them.  TO didn't keep all of them either.

TO also had talent coming from across the country to play in his system.  And how often are we missing out on top in state talent, it feels like a lot.

 

[Mavric]

Right or wrong, Riley was hired to be a nice guy.  He had never proven he could win at a high rate and his last 4 seasons before coming to Nebraska were 3-9, 9-4, 7-6 and 5-7.  

Yes and no.  He was definitely hired to be the anti-Pelini.  

But pretty much everyone - Pearlman, Eichorst, fans, etc. - expected that pretty much anyone could come in here and win more than Pelini.

There's kind of a lot of revisionist history about why Pelini was fired.  Pearlman wanted him out because of his antics.  And there were plenty of fans that disliked how he behaved to whatever extent.  But most people wanted him gone because he "should" have been winning more.  Lost four games each year.  Couldn't win the big games.  A drunk monkey could get #9wins at Nebraska.  The recording from his farewell to the players allowed a lot of people to shift why they wanted him gone to that kind of behavior but before that most people were convinced we could/should be doing better in the Win column.

 

[Husker in WI]

TO also had talent coming from across thr country to play in his system.  And how often are we missing out on top in state talent, it feels like a lot.

I don't think it's been that often - 2022 is going to sting, at best we're signing 2 of the top 5. But the rest of the Frost era has been pretty solid. There will always be occasional kids having a different dream school (Watts/ND) or just wanting to leave the state (Dickerson, most of the 2022 guys). But I think Frost will clean up the other conspicuous misses, kids like Bryson Williams being offered too late or not offering any of Clester's kids. And if we start winning, even the ones planning on leaving the state will start giving us a chance. 

But in state overall:

2018 - 1/2 for kids that we offered. I think Frost would have landed Bryson had he been able to recruit him from the beginning.

2019 - 5/5 

2020 - 1/2 (2/3 depending on how you view Gifford). I think Watts was leaving regardless

2021 - 5/7 (but missed on the top 2). Clearly Dickerson just wanted out, and seems like Keagan was holding his brothers' lack of offers against Frost. 

2022 - It won't be good. 

So there could be a trend there I guess, but some kids are going to leave. Especially if they can go somewhere like ND, or want to play in warm weather. I think the 2022 kids would be gone even if we were where we'd hoped to be at this point under Frost, winning the West. Seems like a fluky year as far as kids having no interest in us, but 2023 will be interesting to watch. It looks loaded, and if we lose more than 1 or 2 guys we offer I'll be worried. 

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

That is not why Riley was hired and we all know it.  He was hired to be the polar opposite to this-



And this-



And all the other coach tantrum BS.  

Right or wrong, Riley was hired to be a nice guy.  He had never proven he could win at a high rate and his last 4 seasons before coming to Nebraska were 3-9, 9-4, 7-6 and 5-7.  

My understanding is that Eichorst first reached out to Brett Bielema, so the "nice guy" theory can't be entirely true.  It's also true that most coaches would be a better public face for the University than Bo Pelini, so pretty much any HC could be accused of being nicer. Turns out the big names weren't interested in the job. I'm sure some people loved the fact that Mike Riley was extra nice, but he was hired because he had a reputation as a great recruiter — Rivals considered it a coup — and some folks thought he could do better with Nebraska's resources than Corvallis'. 

If you look back to 2014 and consider the coaches Nebraska couldn't or didn't hire, you won't find a lot of less-nice guys with can't miss records. 

 

[GSG]

Eichorst - s#!t

Riley- s#!t

You can sprinkle glitter on s#!t all day long but at the end of the day it's s#!t

 

[ZRod]

Eichorst - s#!t

Riley- s#!t

You can sprinkle glitter on s#!t all day long but at the end of the day it's s#!t

Sometimes there's corn in it though.

 

[ZRod]

Pelini mainly got fired cause he was an a$$ to important people.

And because he couldn't win the big game, a championship, was routinely embarrassed on the national stage, and always lost 4 games. His attitude was just icing on the cake.

 

[KingBlank]

And because he couldn't win the big game, a championship, was routinely embarrassed on the national stage, and always lost 4 games. His attitude was just icing on the cake.

Cry me a freaking river about the national stage.  "Good" teams continually to this day get hammered in big games.   He also was in big games because his team's were good.  Every single Scott Frost team would get slaughtered by any of Bos teams.