Former Nebraska coach Tom Osborne to headline two UCF fundraisers

[dinglefritz]

I'm not so sure of that. I love him and all, but how much hand holding would it take to yield good results? Should he have been groomed to take over for Osborne? We'll never know.

IF you can win at Liberty you can win anywhere. It would have to be the right spot but I think he could do it especially now. NU would have been easier from the standpoint of the support system and I expect that he would have hired some better assistants than Bo did. Inevitably it probably wouldn't have ended well because I don't know if he could have won enough to keep the wolves at bay so Tom probably did him a favor by passing on him. People are judging him completely on the KU disaster but that situation I think has been proven to be unworkable for just about anybody. What was the southeastern program that supposedly nearly hired Turner before KU did? Was it Auburn?

 

[PeliniTheCrutch]

People think Bo Pelini set the program back. Turner Gill...whoa baby.

 

[Huskers_Rule]

This has nothing to do with TO. I have great respect for what he accomplished as a football coach at Nebraska.

This has to do with the teenage-like worship of grown ass men. Or whatever the hell you claim to be Tom.

Edit - sorry I should be more politically correct. Or however the hell you self-identify Tom.

No one worships him of course so you are wrong as soon as you start. Does respect, appreciation, admiration, etc. mean anything to you? You are calling this worship, I call it a lifetime of respect EARNED.

 

[Tuco Salamanca]

No one worships him of course so you are wrong as soon as you start. Does respect, appreciation, admiration, etc. mean anything to you? You are calling this worship, I call it a lifetime of respect EARNED.

Blah blah blah.

 

[Toms Wife]

Blah blah blah.

This is so funny for someone who has spent time salivating over a high school secondary player...over a third string NFL quarterback...over a current college dropout...and over a career .500ish coach. Now, no one regurgitated how sophomoric this was but the moment TO gets mentioned the insults roll.

 

[Blackshirt30]

This is what Top Flight means to me... Even though Alabama was a mess, Nick Saban, who had coached a National Champion team at LSU, and was the current Miami Dolphins head coach, couldn't say no to an offer to coach at Alabama.

I don't care what condition they were in at the time, because when Saban took over they were just what you described... they were a mess, and should not have been attractive to a guy like Saban.

So you can say Alabama was a mess, which made it difficult to hire good coaches (hence them settling for an offer to Riley), how did they land Saban? They weren't relevant at all...

Now to your point about Riley's age, I do agree that hiring a 61 year Mike Riley is definitely a risk... It may pan out, it may not. And because of his age, I also agree that the odds of another top flight school hiring him was minimal... We will know in 3 years or so if this was the right hire.

Riley was offered the Alabama job in 2002, not 2007 when Saban was hired. USC was looking at him as a transition guy when Pete Carroll left. USC knew sanctions were coming and wanted somebody familiar with the program to hold the reigns until the Trojans got through their penalties. I like Riley, but there is no need to pump him up to seem like he is some sort of highly sought after coach by the top programs. Plenty of top programs could have lured him from Oregon State over the past 10 years and hardly any even tried. He's a good coach with a great reputation.
I didn't like the hire at the time, even though I like him way more than Bo. Hope he proves me wrong and can win big here at Nebraska. For the most part I like what he's done so far.

 

[timnsun]

Riley was offered the Alabama job in 2002, not 2007 when Saban was hired. USC was looking at him as a transition guy when Pete Carroll left. USC knew sanctions were coming and wanted somebody familiar with the program to hold the reigns until the Trojans got through their penalties. I like Riley, but there is no need to pump him up to seem like he is some sort of highly sought after coach by the top programs. Plenty of top programs could have lured him from Oregon State over the past 10 years and hardly any even tried. He's a good coach with a great reputation.
I didn't like the hire at the time, even though I like him way more than Bo. Hope he proves me wrong and can win big here at Nebraska. For the most part I like what he's done so far.

Thanks for the inside scoop... didn't know all those details, especially that USC wasn't interested in him long term...

Where did you get this info from again?

Like I said, it may work out, it might not. But the bottom line is blue blood schools sought his services. Doesn't matter when or what the circumstances were. They went after him, which says something. At least it does to me.

 

[Mr.Scary13]

USC and Alabama were in pretty bad shape back then, even worse than us in 2007 and 2014. Alabama had just been hammered by heavy sanctions when they offered Riley the job. The only guy that would take the job was an alum that had never coached at the college level. USC was mired in mediocrity and considered Riley because he was once an assistant there under John Robinson. Riley actually wanted the UCLA job but was passed over for an NFL position coach with no head-coaching experience.

Lol. Those are premiere jobs.