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Class imploding the final nail in the coffin?

good points but as a coach I think you can sell 6 wins to 9-4 with a heavy emphasis on our QB was hurt and we haven't fully implemented our systems to explain the losses. "Look at how close we are despite those deficiencies .. we just need you to make the next step .... sunshine, sunshine, sunshine ...."

then we kicked off the season and the optimism quickly faded .. kids aren't stupid ... It is highly likely that every time Bookie showed up in Husker gear his teammates and friends either outright laughed in his face or snickered behind his back

you have to be able to sell that you are close as a program to becoming relevant to high profile recruits

I don't think many of these high profile recruits were going to stick if we win 6 games even if the AD and Riley were retained and the admin gave them a vote of confidence .. that is just my opinion .. some believe they would have stayed committed .. no way to prove one way or the other
Nailed it. The sold Nebraska as going big time to these recruits and could explain last season. But it appears like it was smoke and mirrors as everything has spiraled downward.
 
You are giving some people Faaaaaaaar too much credit for supporting anything. A good majority of the people leading the charge now have been against the hire from the beginning and have said as much. They were no where to be found when this team was the 8th ranked paper tiger last year, but came around again after the Ohio St game last year.

These guys are looking for some sort of prize for being right in 2014.

You might be one of those guys that its all about being right but many of us who never liked the hire are not reveling in being right. We are just looking forward to an opportunity to do a lot better.
 
Some fans really struggle to identify patterns. It's only every year now that recruits like everything they see January - August, then the conference slate rolls around and they realize they don't wanna be coached down for 4-5 years and be the 3rd best team in the West.

I keep trying to tell people but the "fanlier than thou" set only wants to say that it's the fault of fans like me for stating that the emperor has no clothes. This staff doesn't have these guys doing anything well. It's Tanner Lee and a bunch of nothing, even at positions that were supposed strengths.

OL can't block, WRs can't catch, LBs can't stop the run, DBs can't cover. Millions of dollars being spent for that to happen.

Still can't figure out it might be good to try to block a punt once in a while if they're forcing you to fair catch all game. Guess you need those other 10 guys to properly set up a fair catch.

Is the talent level good? No. Are they making the most of what they have? No. Not even close. Can't run the ball on Purdue for God sakes.
This.
 
You might be one of those guys that its all about being right but many of us who never liked the hire are not reveling in being right. We are just looking forward to an opportunity to do a lot better.
Exactly. What is there to revel about? Sure, many of us never bought the hype. But right now there is so much wrong with the Huskers that the one thing that we have is hope that the future can be better. While it is annoying, that is why there are 14 million threads about the next head coach.
 
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As for recruiting, it is what it is. The two big honchos decided to can the AD early season, the team is under performing wrt to fan expectations (but on par with Vegas expectations) and swapping out the staff is the coin of the Husker realm.
The team could confound things by upping their game a notch. NW, MN and Iowa are all winnable games and that gets the team to 7-5. A retained Riley would then be tasked with shedding Cav and maybe Davis, and then salvaging the recruiting class.
Impressive. Nearly his entire first staff put out to pasture. And you still want more of where this came from if he can beat some featherweight programs.
 
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You’ve been complaining for 3 years.
But you just started on this board in august of 2016?

I was posting when we were 8-0 last year and got banned after I criticized Read, and called all sorts of things relating to being a bad fan.

Those who held their opinions on this staff have been called all sorts of things , in fact just yesterday a poster told me to go and commit suicide.

So enough of this three years crap
 
Nope not angry at all, just find it comical that they only appear after blowout losses and when the changes are about to be made.

The post was about people generally supporting Mike Riley until a time when it was apparent he wasn't going to be successful. My reply was that he is giving too much credit to the internet fan board fans, because a good many of them haven't been supportive at all.

But keep pushing your narrative or whatever you are trying to do.
It's probably because that opinion wasn't allowed on here at the time, and you'd probably get banned or dismissed as a troll if you were skeptical of Riley.
 
But you just started on this board in august of 2016?

I was posting when we were 8-0 last year and got banned after I criticized Read, and called all sorts of things relating to being a bad fan.

Those who held their opinions on this staff have been called all sorts of things , in fact just yesterday a poster told me to go and commit suicide.

So enough of this three years crap

The 3 year comment is based on hitching since Riley was hired not how long I’ve been on the board. I didn’t need to be on the board to know that some of these guys have never given Riley any support. Which if you actually read what I wrote, was the point of my original post.
 
Guys, recruiting at Nebraska is the following...

System >>>>>>>> Stars.

Develop. Coach. Win
It depends on what you want to win. If you want to win the West? That might be true. If you want to win a title, you have to have elite talent. Stars aren't perfect but no team in the last 20 years has ever won a title without consistent top 10-15 classes except Clemson and Auburn who were both on the fringes of that. And they had 5 star 1st round, transcendent talents at QB. So if you want to compete for titles you either consistently get elite classes or get very good classes and also Cam Newton or Deshaun Watson. I realize we are very far away from a national title, but I don't want to build a program that strives to win the West.
 
It's probably because that opinion wasn't allowed on here at the time, and you'd probably get banned or dismissed as a troll if you were skeptical of Riley.

I don’t care that you have that opinion or didn’t support Riley.

My original point was to refute the post that claimed “even though the hire was a head scratcher, the fans wanted this to be a good hire and supported it up until the wheels fell off".

That was generally not the case. Most of the fan base didn't like the hire, have never really supported the hire and many wanted Riley gone the day after he was hired. So I said he was giving the fan base way too much credit for that comment. The only thing accurate, in my opinion, is that the fans wanted it to be a good hire, but I don't think the support was there.
 
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Yep. And you've been giving me all the complaint material.

I'm not Mike Riley, I didn't make the hire. You and others like you have been complaining this was a bad fit, blah blah blah for 3 years. If me saying that we need to give him a chance was material for you to complain, that is on you not me.
 
It depends on what you want to win. If you want to win the West? That might be true. If you want to win a title, you have to have elite talent. Stars aren't perfect but no team in the last 20 years has ever won a title without consistent top 10-15 classes except Clemson and Auburn who were both on the fringes of that. And they had 5 star 1st round, transcendent talents at QB. So if you want to compete for titles you either consistently get elite classes or get very good classes and also Cam Newton or Deshaun Watson. I realize we are very far away from a national title, but I don't want to build a program that strives to win the West.


As I said on page 1 Nebraska needs to decide if they want to recruit like Wisconsin and concert their efforts on development and steal a few big studs recruits every now and again, or if they want to recruit like Ohio St and chase stars and more ready made players that can play early. It is just very difficult to do both.

I agree that winning national titles with a classes ranked in the mid 20's isn't going to happen very often, if ever anymore. You may get to the CFP like Michigan St did, but the other 3 teams are going to be chalk full of studs, so winning 2 games against that level of competition is going to be tough. Much different than when you just had to win the league and one bowl game with a month plus to prepare for one opponent.
 
As I said on page 1 Nebraska needs to decide if they want to recruit like Wisconsin and concert their efforts on development and steal a few big studs recruits every now and again, or if they want to recruit like Ohio St and chase stars and more ready made players that can play early. It is just very difficult to do both.

I agree that winning national titles with a classes ranked in the mid 20's isn't going to happen very often, if ever anymore. You may get to the CFP like Michigan St did, but the other 3 teams are going to be chalk full of studs, so winning 2 games against that level of competition is going to be tough. Much different than when you just had to win the league and one bowl game with a month plus to prepare for one opponent.
Why is it either or? I think we can recruit better than Wisconsin, but will not consistently recruit at the Ohio state level. So development is key and of course solid recruiting is key also
 
Why is it either or? I think we can recruit better than Wisconsin, but will not consistently recruit at the Ohio state level. So development is key and of course solid recruiting is key also
I don't get the either/or thinking either (other than it's nice to make straw men to blow down). There is a guy living in Lincoln right now who was able to do both for a lot of years...recruit well and develop players.

It's like the whole argument about having a strong walk-on program. People on here like to act that means we don't care about scholarship recruits. Ummmmm...our formula for winning in the past was actually doing both.
 
Why is it either or? I think we can recruit better than Wisconsin, but will not consistently recruit at the Ohio state level. So development is key and of course solid recruiting is key also


If you recruit half a class of kids that need to be developed and half a class of kids that are ready to play immediately, when do the kids that need to be developed ever see the field?

If you chase 4 and 5 star players, at some point you have to get them to sign. If you spent 18 months chasing and only a get a few, your classes look like Nebraska's classes the last 3 years.

Finding a staff of coaches that are both great developers of talent and great recruiters is very difficult. Look at D Williams as an example, great recruiter, great relationship guy, but the CBs haven't really developed much over the season. If you put him at USC or Ohio St or Florida, he could get a bunch of 4 and 5 star DBs to come to that school, but I don't think he makes a bunch of 3 star players 5 star players.

It is similar to MLB, you can build through the farm system or build through free agency. If you build through the farm system, you will still need to get some guys via free agency to compete for titles, but most of the future stars were developed. If you build through free agency, you will still need some of your farm system players to make contributions. Two very different approaches to get to the same result.
 
I don't get the either/or thinking either (other than it's nice to make straw men to blow down). There is a guy living in Lincoln right now who was able to do both for a lot of years...recruit well and develop players.

It's like the whole argument about having a strong walk-on program. People on here like to act that means we don't care about scholarship recruits. Ummmmm...our formula for winning in the past was actually doing both.


Always back to the past for you isn't it. Things have changed. Listen to Bill Moos.

I never said you can't do both. You try to use the recruiting rankings of 30 years ago to prove Nebraska recruited great talent. Many of those recruiting services looked at about 200-300 kids total per year and based their rankings on that. There wasn't the amount of time and resources put into evaluation, by sites like Rivals and 247-Scout.
 
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I really feel for Riley by all accounts he worked hard, he fired Banker his friend and did have to deal with the toxicity from the Pelini era. The issue is that he should never have hired in the first place, Eichorst and Perlman are the root cause of all this upheaval both to our program and to these coaches.

It never should have happened, Riley could have retired from OSU as the coach who built that program to heights they had never been. Now he will retire as the coach who took us to Purdues level

They need to pull the bandaids off for all concerned

Well... that's a bit of a stretch. It's fleeting but Dennis Erickson had them 11-1 and winning a BCS Bowl. Riley's best year was 10-4. He had a few other 9-4 seasons but he never got them a season like Erickson did in 2000.
 
Well... that's a bit of a stretch. It's fleeting but Dennis Erickson had them 11-1 and winning a BCS Bowl. Riley's best year was 10-4. He had a few other 9-4 seasons but he never got them a season like Erickson did in 2000.

what was Erickson's record the 2 years after the 11-1 season? It was Erickson's 2nd year at Oregon St that he went to the BCS bowl game, right?
 
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I don’t care that you have that opinion or didn’t support Riley.

My original point was to refute the post that claimed “even though the hire was a head scratcher, the fans wanted this to be a good hire and supported it up until the wheels fell off".

That was generally not the case. Most of the fan base didn't like the hire, have never really supported the hire and many wanted Riley gone the day after he was hired. So I said he was giving the fan base way too much credit for that comment. The only thing accurate, in my opinion, is that the fans wanted it to be a good hire, but I don't think the support was there.
When have I said that I didn't support Riley?

You called out the posters who are critical after losses, but don't post as much after wins. The reason for that is they can get banned for expressing their opinions, while the mods generally let more go after a loss.

Most of the fan base will support any coach who leads this program until they start seeing bad results on the field. Riley has gotten a ton of support from the fan base the moment he was hired. He can only blame himself for pissing that away.
 
Well... that's a bit of a stretch. It's fleeting but Dennis Erickson had them 11-1 and winning a BCS Bowl. Riley's best year was 10-4. He had a few other 9-4 seasons but he never got them a season like Erickson did in 2000.
Erickson recruited a bunch of thug Juco's - Riley tried and to a large extent cleaned up the program and did things to right way
 
I'm not Mike Riley, I didn't make the hire. You and others like you have been complaining this was a bad fit, blah blah blah for 3 years. If me saying that we need to give him a chance was material for you to complain, that is on you not me.
You haven't been on this board for 3 years, so how do you know? If someone had been complaining constantly for 3 years that this was a bad fit, they would have been banned.
 
Seems hard to get specific info on recruiting rankings during the early 90s, but TO had top ten classes in the mid-90s. An advantage that TO had was a long serving staff that understood the kinds of players needed to run the schemes NU employed. Seems pretty clear to me that TO was able to combine landing blue chip recruits with the development of under-recruited players. From the Sipple article:
He cites Tom Rathman's recruitment. The former Husker and NFL fullback was lightly recruited at Grand Island High School, Osborne recalled.
However, "If you put Tom Rathman in Dallas or Chicago, he would have been a five-star recruit," Osborne said. "He could high-jump 6-foot-9, could run and was strong. But he was in Grand Island and committed early. So I don't know that he got much notice."

http://journalstar.com/sports/colum...cle_5e46d29f-37e4-5ccc-b9b5-ee96d440babc.html
http://a.espncdn.com/ncf/s/2002/0205/1323082.html
 
Argument is about something non-quantifiable.

"Riley got a lot of support" -- not quantifiable

"Riley got little support" -- not quantifiable

Instead of saying that the fanbase supported him I should have simply posted that I, personally, don't know anyone who did not support Riley out of the gate and really up until about the time Eichorst got canned -- or more accurately -- until a week or two after NIU. And now, I only know one person who thinks he should be retained.

Everyone's experience may differ.
 
Why is it either or? I think we can recruit better than Wisconsin, but will not consistently recruit at the Ohio state level. So development is key and of course solid recruiting is key also
You can't coach 4 or 5 stars. You can only coach and develop 3 stars.Laughing
 
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You haven't been on this board for 3 years, so how do you know? If someone had been complaining constantly for 3 years that this was a bad fit, they would have been banned.

Again the 3 years is how long Riley has been here not how long I have been here. Comments like “I knew it was a bad fit” blah blah
 
I don't get the either/or thinking either (other than it's nice to make straw men to blow down). There is a guy living in Lincoln right now who was able to do both for a lot of years...recruit well and develop players.

It's like the whole argument about having a strong walk-on program. People on here like to act that means we don't care about scholarship recruits. Ummmmm...our formula for winning in the past was actually doing both.
There are some posters here that are really good at attacking straw men.
 
Again the 3 years is how long Riley has been here not how long I have been here. Comments like “I knew it was a bad fit” blah blah
Not that I expect a reply but posters like you with 4200 posts in a little over a year are not first time posters on here. So obviously you posted on here before under a different name, why not share what that was
 
Riley was the definition of an "underwhelming" hire. Even though i had to google his stats to find out who he was, even after that i supported him from the beginning, saying hey maybe he can do better here. Clearly i put my faith in the wrong place, but i will never feel bad for supporting my huskers and hoping that the gut wrenching feeling i have is just wrong. Wanting to be right about a bad hire is just ridiculous. I am sure there are plenty of people who said he was a horrible hire from the beginning, but still hoped they would be proven wrong. No real husker fan would want our coach to fail for the sake of being right, that is just a stupid thing to say. I suppose there are only a couple baskets that we husker fans fit in, either we are in one or the other.
 
Yawn. There has been significant discussion on this board, for a couple years now, about mistakes that Riley has made since he was hired. That's a fact. It's also a fact that Riley has had to encounter some challenges that were out of his control (e.g., the AD that hired him being fired in September). Those two things can co-exist.
You mean like changing conferences where the style of football being played was totally different?
 
I'm not Mike Riley, I didn't make the hire. You and others like you have been complaining this was a bad fit, blah blah blah for 3 years. If me saying that we need to give him a chance was material for you to complain, that is on you not me.

Oh you sell yourself short. You did much more than say we needed to give him more time. You were a major sunshine pumper on many fronts and on many topics and had no problem throwing it out at anyone who saw this disaster start almost 3 years ago.
 
Oh you sell yourself short. You did much more than say we needed to give him more time. You were a major sunshine pumper on many fronts and on many topics and had no problem throwing it out at anyone who saw this disaster start almost 3 years ago.

I looked for the positives in the situation. If that is a sunshine pumper so be it.

If you read what I wrote, you will see that your last sentence proves my original point of giving fans too much credit.

: Yea. You were right about Mike Riley,

: What does he win Bob?

: Not damn thing
 
I looked for the positives in the situation. If that is a sunshine pumper so be it.

If you read what I wrote, you will see that your last sentence proves my original point of giving fans too much credit.

: Yea. You were right about Mike Riley,

: What does he win Bob?

: Not damn thing
And he may not even be right about Riley. Who knows what Riley would have been able to build here if given more time? But once Eichorst was fired there was no way we were going to find out.
 
As I said on page 1 Nebraska needs to decide if they want to recruit like Wisconsin and concert their efforts on development and steal a few big studs recruits every now and again, or if they want to recruit like Ohio St and chase stars and more ready made players that can play early. It is just very difficult to do both.

I agree that winning national titles with a classes ranked in the mid 20's isn't going to happen very often, if ever anymore. You may get to the CFP like Michigan St did, but the other 3 teams are going to be chalk full of studs, so winning 2 games against that level of competition is going to be tough. Much different than when you just had to win the league and one bowl game with a month plus to prepare for one opponent.
I don't know how it is difficult to do both. Could you elaborate?
 
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