Read fired

[nebcountry]

saying Nebraska needed JUCO lineman after the fact is pointless though. Too many people use 20/20 hindsight when they criticize decisions.

The staff had to make decisions based on what they had and what they knew then. Before spring practice and before Thurston left, before the nagging injuries.

What is the point in discussing what should have happened? I am talking about this class, the one being recruited right now.

Counting the sophs and younger we have 10 scholarship OL moving forward. Gaylord and Decker, I think, cracked the 2-deep for the Iowa game (is that because they are good, or did the coaches need 2 more names?, I don't know). Add in the 3 sophs, + Conrad makes 6 going forward. That leaves the 2016 class (counted in the 10 OL), future true freshman, and other walk-ons to fill the requirements or be called upon due to injury.

If we aren't pursuing any JUCO (or grad transfer) OL, it looks like the coaching staff thinks that we are in good shape.

What is the point in discussing what should have happened? I guess some people are worked up.

 

[Wasker77]

Whether or not Riley ultimately will take this team to the next level remains to be seen, but these type of moves show he's dead set on trying.

I find Riley firing Read very interesting. Probably the biggest reason besides getting a bigger salary in coming to Lincoln was that Riley was getting pressure in Corvallis to get rid of all his friends who were his assistants. Now two years later he fires Read who has been dreadful. I bet the Oregon State fans are going to be even more surprised than Husker fans. Hoping this is just another sign that Riley is fully understanding what it takes to be better than a slightly above .500 career coach.

 

[Tuco Salamanca]

Counting the sophs and younger we have 10 scholarship OL moving forward. Gaylord and Decker, I think, cracked the 2-deep for the Iowa game (is that because they are good, or did the coaches need 2 more names?, I don't know). Add in the 3 sophs, + Conrad makes 6 going forward. That leaves the 2016 class (counted in the 10 OL), future true freshman, and other walk-ons to fill the requirements or be called upon due to injury.

If we aren't pursuing any JUCO (or grad transfer) OL, it looks like the coaching staff thinks that we are in good shape.

What is the point in discussing what should have happened? I guess some people are worked up.

I think they have decided that recruiting high school kids is the best way to build depth in the OLine. There are 3 returning starters, 4 if you count Conrad that will be juniors next year. Knevel has starting experience and had his moments when he wasn't nursing injuries. They need to determine who the center is going to be and build some depth with the RS freshmen, along with Decker, Barnett and Gaylord.

Knevel

Farmer
Foster
Gates

Barnett
Decker
Gaylord

Brokop
Farniok
Raridon
Wilson

Jaimes
Bando
Sichterman

3 or 4 in 2018 depending on how many you take in this class.

At that point your classes are fairly even, you don't have to reach in a class because you are replacing a class of 5 or 6, to keep 16-17 on scholarship.

 

[inWV]

Look at it this way. We have three tackles with experience in B1G play in Knevel, Gates and Conrad. Farmer and Foster are starters at guard. We need to replace our Center and add some depth at tackle and esp guard. Those players must come from Barnett (4*), Decker (3*), Gaylord (3*), Brokop (3*), Farniok (3*), Raridon (4*) and Wilson (3*, almost played this year), or perhaps some walkon tbd. Ideally, 3 or 4 of those players must be at the ready. Can we expect 50% of these kids to be ready?

 

[jflores]

Look at it this way. We have three tackles with experience in B1G play in Knevel, Gates and Conrad. Farmer and Foster are starters at guard. We need to replace our Center and add some depth at tackle and esp guard. Those players must come from Barnett (4*), Decker (3*), Gaylord (3*), Brokop (3*), Farniok (3*), Raridon (4*) and Wilson (3*, almost played this year), or perhaps some walkon tbd. Ideally, 3 or 4 of those players must be at the ready. Can we expect 50% of these kids to be ready?

If you can't, you aren't going to build 50% more OL candidates providing immediate depth from JUCO though. Certainly not with stud JUCO.

 

[jflores]

Look at it this way. We have three tackles with experience in B1G play in Knevel, Gates and Conrad. Farmer and Foster are starters at guard. We need to replace our Center and add some depth at tackle and esp guard. Those players must come from Barnett (4*), Decker (3*), Gaylord (3*), Brokop (3*), Farniok (3*), Raridon (4*) and Wilson (3*, almost played this year), or perhaps some walkon tbd. Ideally, 3 or 4 of those players must be at the ready. Can we expect 50% of these kids to be ready?

Looking at that list, Raridon Farniok and Wilson were all rumored to be available to play this year, if needed. Which gives you your three. Of the remaining four, you will probably get something out of them.

 

[GBRhuskers]

What position did Bruce Read just get reassigned to in the recruiting department so that we can capitalize on his people-person skills and his talent evaluating abilities?

You shouldn't assume he wasn't offered a spot somewhere.

 

[jmliehr]

I find Riley firing Read very interesting. Probably the biggest reason besides getting a bigger salary in coming to Lincoln was that Riley was getting pressure in Corvallis to get rid of all his friends who were his assistants. Now two years later he fires Read who has been dreadful. I bet the Oregon State fans are going to be even more surprised than Husker fans. Hoping this is just another sign that Riley is fully understanding what it takes to be better than a slightly above .500 career coach.

Riley did it at least 2X at Oregon State, didn't help matters much.

In 2013 he moved Jay Locey to "Chief of Staff" from the TE coach, moving Trent Bray from a GA to the LB role.

In 2011 he fired Greg Newhouse who was their LB coach at the time.

 

[SPbObRT]

Ex husker Doug Coleman or the mad hatter les miles whose son is coming here. I'm thinking outside the box here .

 

[kaz36]

I don't want him fired. I want him to produce a quality product. I'd love for him to exceed at NU but he has not yet. " Nothing proves that his isn't a right fit " ? How about hours upon hours of game footage? But of course he has an excuse for that, Bo's recruiting.

And I agree going after Jucos is not an automatic fix but what is? At least try. Maybe your personal MO is to curl up in a ball and ignore problems when they occur, that's not mine. I am a veteran of this great country and the armed forces taught me to go down trying. And let me get this straight, you state he shouldn't have attempted to go after jucos last year because he wasn't on them the year before? Really? I don't know if that's a cop-out or just plan BS. So your basically saying every Juco that commits to schools was being recruited by that school for over a year? That's never true in recruiting. Teams sweep in with later offers on kids they weren't recruiting all the time.

But if that was the case, why didn't he learn last year and start recruiting Juco's for this year? Still don't have a ton of upper-class depth on the O-line going into next year. Again, I don't think this would be the right time to fire Cav but I believe he should be on Riley's hot seat. I am just saying, don't try to defend the guy like he's = to Bill Callahan when it comes to greatness of O-line coaches. He's not proven he is an elite coach.

Trust me, I don't think he is free of criticism. There are plenty of things to question. I just try to look at it from a positive point of view and think there could be other factors at play also. If he gets his guys in there and we still struggle, then I will really question him. I just looked at youth and depth and thought maybe that could be it. I also question Coach Williams as I think our receivers have underperformed at times this year, but I don't know if that is his coaching or timeshare fact that they had an erratic QB throwing to them. I'm willing to wait and see if we get a more consistent QB to see where the issue lies. I'm not the timeshehtype of person timeshehtrhat gets the torches and pitchforks out at timeshehtrhat first sign of trouble. I guess that's just how I am.

 

[dinglefritz]

As I said, this is not my argument, I understand the perspective of needing JUCO OL, and it is after the fact. It's always easier to judge after the fact, and I don't know the details going in. Maybe the staff felt they had all the pieces they needed, maybe the staff didn't identify someone that could come in right now, maybe they weren't looking.

You could have 20 OL on scholarship, you still have to be able to put 5 on the field that are at least decent. We have too many "dead" classes, they count against scholarships, but they can't crack the two-deep.

MOST JUCO linemen are there for a reason. The best case is that they needed to get their academics in order. The most common reason is that they didn't show enough talent in high school to garner d-1 offers. I suspect that many of our walk ons are better players than the vast majority of JUCO prospects and they already know the offense and are in our weight room. Secondly, on paper we landed probably our best Oline recruiting class since the 90s last January. Add a couple of guys to that this year and we should be in really good shape going forward. You always take a JUCO IF he's a difference maker but the fact is that there just aren't that many of those out there. Carl Nicks was one but I'm not sure there were any guys like that out there this past year.

 

[huskerfan1414]

Great move by riley. It needed to happen and he moved quickly.
As far as O line goes, i like what we have coming back next year. Depth is still an issue, but we get a lot of guys back with experience.
Ive seen a lot of football teams lose guys everyone thought theyd miss terribly, only to improve the following year. With our nucleus at the O line we have a shot. Need to develop and improve, of course.

 

[Solana Beach Husker]

Really cool that people on here celebrating a person losing their job. I guarantee there isn't a husker coach or player that is celebrating this move. It is one thing to make proper decisions which may involve getting better people in to do a job, it is another thing entirely to celebrate and cheer the same day those decisions leave a man and family with doubt. Sad.

 

[TwinsRRUs]

Really cool that people on here celebrating a person losing their job. I guarantee there isn't a husker coach or player that is celebrating this move. It is one thing to make proper decisions which may involve getting better people in to do a job, it is another thing entirely to celebrate and cheer the same day those decisions leave a man and family with doubt. Sad.

In my case, not necessarily celebrating, but more of a relief that a change was made that seemed like it needed to be made.

Every day, we get better and better...

With the way Riley has responded to ST questions after the last couple games, I think Read knew that his future was coming to an end. And like others have said, maybe there is more to it and other things done behind the scenes.

One way or another, if he made $900k while at Nebraska, that man and his family are financially set. Surely every coach (and his family) in the FBS knows that they can lose their job at any time.

Heck, I worked at a job for 10 years and feared for my job the whole time because of how the company worked. I knew that was part of the deal when I started and Bruce Read knew it as well for his position.

I agree, someone losing their job shouldn't be celebrated, but what should be celebrated is the fact that Riley recognized that the STs were not doing well and were costing his team valuable field position in almost every game.

I will celebrate Riley and his attempt to improve his team.

 

[TwinsRRUs]

Every other coach on the staff has to know that they can be let go at any time.

In the back of their minds, a decision like this should motivate them to do the best job they can do and that benefits the team and fans.

 

[timnsun]

Really cool that people on here celebrating a person losing their job. I guarantee there isn't a husker coach or player that is celebrating this move. It is one thing to make proper decisions which may involve getting better people in to do a job, it is another thing entirely to celebrate and cheer the same day those decisions leave a man and family with doubt. Sad.

Who is celebrating Read getting fired? admittedly, I haven't read each and every post, but I find it hard to believe people are celebrating his firing...

People are happy that a change has been made to better the program... are you against that?