The book’s still not quite closed on the Bo Pelini era despite how tired fans may be of hearing about it.
Some love new head coach Mike Riley, others think he’s some schlub from Oregon State who’ll never amount to anything regardless of the shiny toys at his disposal. However, looking at the bigger picture — beyond his initial 6-7 season — it’s hard to claim that.
Riley has already proven he’s not afraid to step in and remove coaches who aren’t pulling their weight as he did with former defensive line coach Hank Hughes. Pelini never fired former linebacker coach and current Purdue defensive coordinator Ross
Els for some odd reason. Els’ units frequently exhibited poor play and he had a lackluster approach to putting together a recruiting strategy.
“I want to be done now,” Els told ESPN.com in a 2013 interview. “The problem is we aren’t going to get a ton of commitments, obviously, until we get kids on campus. And because of our small population base around here, it’s hard to get kids to come visit us right away when we’re not paying for it. It’s expensive.”
Riley’s regime came in and recently featured a camp that not only brought four and five-star prospects from across the country in as scheduled, but four-star Missouri commitment Daron Davis stopped by completely unannounced. Best of all, the
the prospects in attendance worked out in front of roughly 3,000 spectators.
While Riley’s first year at Nebraska didn’t go anywhere near as planned, if Pelini was the coach so many claim he is, naturally his Youngstown State teams would perform admirably, no? The Penguins went 5-6 in 2015, missing the FCS playoffs. Keep in mind that Pelini had two Power Five transfers follow him from Nebraska in defensive tackle Avery Moss and safety LeRoy Alexander. One would think quality P5 players could help a decent coach best a 5-6 mark in the FCS.
Riley understands the frustrations of fans who want far better than 6-7, because he does, too. More importantly, he wants them to understand that he gets Nebraska football. At the aforementioned Friday Night Lights camp, he said as much. Keep in mind that he opened those camps to the public, too.
Pelini on the other hand, well…his feelings towards Nebraska’s fans have been well-documented (NSFW). Those two points — laziness and loathing of the fan base— are why the Huskers are better off without Pelini and his crew.
For the Huskers who backed him, he met the magical nine win mark that Tom Osborne had achieved for decades. It was a bit harder back in his day, but regardless, that was Pelini’s bar.
With the overall weakness of the Big Ten West division and non-conference schedules that didn’t exactly line up powerhouses, Nebraska’s former head coach had a relatively easy path towards those wins and would’ve gladly taken them year after year. The Huskers would’ve kept spinning their wheels going nowhere and he could claim he’d accomplished what was acceptable for Osborne.
However, for many Nebraska fans, nine wins simply isn’t enough and quite frankly,
that shouldn’t be the mark the Big Red uses.
Winning the division must be the absolute acceptable minimum and nine wins won’t always get the Huskers to that point. Riley wants scarlet and cream to fill the stands at the Big Ten Championship versus the representative from the Big Ten West. He has the same national title aspirations as all fans, supporters and detractors.
A number of fans got behind Pelini because they felt he was their kind of guy, but his tough guy act was just that, an act. He wasn’t blue-collar, hard-working or genuine.
However, if you talk to those in today’s Nebraska program, including coaches, players and staff, you will find that the man currently in charge is all of that and more.
The guy who picked up trash at a satellite camp in California for no other reason than, well, you make sure the world’s a little better than the way you found it.
That’s a guy worth rooting for.
How appropriate, Huskers, that’s your coach.
By Brandon Cavanaugh
Posted on June 30, 2016
Some love new head coach Mike Riley, others think he’s some schlub from Oregon State who’ll never amount to anything regardless of the shiny toys at his disposal. However, looking at the bigger picture — beyond his initial 6-7 season — it’s hard to claim that.
Riley has already proven he’s not afraid to step in and remove coaches who aren’t pulling their weight as he did with former defensive line coach Hank Hughes. Pelini never fired former linebacker coach and current Purdue defensive coordinator Ross
Els for some odd reason. Els’ units frequently exhibited poor play and he had a lackluster approach to putting together a recruiting strategy.
“I want to be done now,” Els told ESPN.com in a 2013 interview. “The problem is we aren’t going to get a ton of commitments, obviously, until we get kids on campus. And because of our small population base around here, it’s hard to get kids to come visit us right away when we’re not paying for it. It’s expensive.”
Riley’s regime came in and recently featured a camp that not only brought four and five-star prospects from across the country in as scheduled, but four-star Missouri commitment Daron Davis stopped by completely unannounced. Best of all, the
the prospects in attendance worked out in front of roughly 3,000 spectators.
While Riley’s first year at Nebraska didn’t go anywhere near as planned, if Pelini was the coach so many claim he is, naturally his Youngstown State teams would perform admirably, no? The Penguins went 5-6 in 2015, missing the FCS playoffs. Keep in mind that Pelini had two Power Five transfers follow him from Nebraska in defensive tackle Avery Moss and safety LeRoy Alexander. One would think quality P5 players could help a decent coach best a 5-6 mark in the FCS.
Riley understands the frustrations of fans who want far better than 6-7, because he does, too. More importantly, he wants them to understand that he gets Nebraska football. At the aforementioned Friday Night Lights camp, he said as much. Keep in mind that he opened those camps to the public, too.
Pelini on the other hand, well…his feelings towards Nebraska’s fans have been well-documented (NSFW). Those two points — laziness and loathing of the fan base— are why the Huskers are better off without Pelini and his crew.
For the Huskers who backed him, he met the magical nine win mark that Tom Osborne had achieved for decades. It was a bit harder back in his day, but regardless, that was Pelini’s bar.
With the overall weakness of the Big Ten West division and non-conference schedules that didn’t exactly line up powerhouses, Nebraska’s former head coach had a relatively easy path towards those wins and would’ve gladly taken them year after year. The Huskers would’ve kept spinning their wheels going nowhere and he could claim he’d accomplished what was acceptable for Osborne.
However, for many Nebraska fans, nine wins simply isn’t enough and quite frankly,
that shouldn’t be the mark the Big Red uses.
Winning the division must be the absolute acceptable minimum and nine wins won’t always get the Huskers to that point. Riley wants scarlet and cream to fill the stands at the Big Ten Championship versus the representative from the Big Ten West. He has the same national title aspirations as all fans, supporters and detractors.
A number of fans got behind Pelini because they felt he was their kind of guy, but his tough guy act was just that, an act. He wasn’t blue-collar, hard-working or genuine.
However, if you talk to those in today’s Nebraska program, including coaches, players and staff, you will find that the man currently in charge is all of that and more.
The guy who picked up trash at a satellite camp in California for no other reason than, well, you make sure the world’s a little better than the way you found it.
That’s a guy worth rooting for.
How appropriate, Huskers, that’s your coach.
By Brandon Cavanaugh
Posted on June 30, 2016
