https://www.campusrush.com/mike-riley-nebraska-cornhuskers-punt-pass-pork-1311877353.html
LINCOLN, Neb.—The yellow beach cruiser with the giant basket chained to a rack stationed outside Nebraska's Hawks Championship Center looked exactly like the sort of thing the caricature we've drawn of Mike Riley would ride to work. Yes, he did pedal to his previous job at Oregon State, but that had more to do with proximity than it did with a love of cycling. As Nebraska's head coach, Riley drives to the office.
"People think I'm a real bicycle guy. I'm a 10-minute cruiser guy," Riley said. "It's funny how people know the story, and they've got these great trails around Lincoln. But people go on 30-mile bike rides, and I say I'm going to have to train a little bit longer."
Riley had a nice little routine in Corvallis, Ore. Bike to work. Coach in the town where he grew up. Labor without the crushing weight of expectations many of his colleagues shouldered. All that fit neatly into the nicest-coach-in-college-football image Riley cultivated by actually being one of the nicest people in college football. There was more to that routine, though. Upset the occasional powerhouse. Scratch and claw to find and sign recruits capable of competing in the Pac-12. Lose to Oregon.
That last one had to get old. Knowing his program would likely never be better than the fourth choice—behind Oregon, Stanford and Washington—in the Pac-12 North among recruits had to grate on Riley as well. Because even though he's a nice football coach, he is still a football coach. He remains the coach's kid who grew up in Corvallis but moved to Tuscaloosa, Ala., to play for Bear Bryant. He remains the man who left Oregon State the first time to coach the San Diego Chargers. He may not act or talk like Urban Meyer or Nick Saban, but he ultimately wants the same things they do. Considered through that prism, Riley's move from Corvallis to Lincoln doesn't seem the least bit shocking. "I tell people, don't overdramatize this thing," he said. "It's a guy taking another job because he thinks it's exciting and new."
That key factor seems to have been comfort. Riley was extremely comfortable in Corvallis. He has the potential to be extremely uncomfortable in Lincoln if he posts records similar to the one the Beavers posted (5-7) in his final season at Oregon State. And while the average person might consider that a reason to stay on the coast, the kind of person who becomes a Power Five football coach has precisely opposite mindset. Comfort is unbearable. High-risk, high-reward states are preferable.
That's exactly what the Nebraska job is. On Dec. 1 the Cornhuskers fired Bo Pelini, who never won fewer than nine games in his seven seasons in Lincoln. He also never lost fewer than four. Pelini existed in that narrow space where a coach's personality actually matters. A coach who consistently wins titles will almost always remain employed. A coach who consistently posts losing seasons will almost always get fired. The coach who wins just enough and loses just enough? He is judged on the intangibles. Pelini was beloved by his players but not by Nebraska's administration. So, when in 2014 he again won the games he was supposed to win and lost the games he was supposed to lose, he became expendable. "We weren't good enough in the games that mattered," Nebraska athletic director Shawn Eichorst told reporters on the day he fired Pelini.
This move was met largely with fan approval even though nine to 10 wins every year is enough to keep a coach employed in most places. Of course, Nebraska has a fan base that believes Lincoln isn't most places. After going through seven years on a ride as flat as the land in the western part of the state, Nebraska fans wanted to feel something again. Another coach might bring valleys, but if he also brings peaks, that might make the valleys more tolerable.
Still, it should be noted that while Pelini compiled a 66-28 record at Nebraska between 2008 and '14, Riley went 46-42 over that same span at Oregon State. Those records are the inverse of how coaching change math usually works. This is either an indicator of disaster ahead or an acknowledgement of the difficulty of posting nine-win seasons in Corvallis. Riley's record in Lincoln will determine that answer.
Riley understands this completely. He also understands the hunger at a program that has a banner over its practice field commemorating 43 conference titles. The last one came in 1999, when most of his players had yet to start kindergarten.
"They want to get back where they're in that conversation about national championships," Riley said. "And they want to win the conference championship." Riley appreciates the passion. "The stadium has been renovated many times. But part of the inner wall over there in the front, over an arch in the doorway is the greatest saying in the world: 'Through these gates pass the greatest fans in college football.' The longer that I've been here, the more I know that they're right."
It's easy for an undefeated coach to say that. It isn't so easy when that coach has failed to fulfill expectations and heard about it from the faithful. Pelini blew up at Nebraska's fans in 2011 in a rant he didn't know was being recorded. When that recording was leaked in '13, it eroded even more support for Pelini. With Riley, the Cornhuskers aren't likely to have to deal with another coach dropping F-bombs with regard to the paying customers. But that doesn't mean the paying customers will be any happier with Riley than they were with Pelini, especially if Riley doesn't deliver a product worth celebrating.
That again raises the question: Why would Riley leave Oregon State to jump into this pressure cooker? The answer remains the same as above. He is a football coach. He is wired to prefer this. "First of all, it's better to be at a place where there are great expectations," Riley said. "What was neat about Oregon State is the expectations grew. When I went there in 1997, there were none. Nobody really cared."
At Nebraska, they care.
"Everybody says that puts pressure on you," Riley said. "But, gosh. I always say there's nobody that puts more pressure on coaches than coaches do. The hard part about this business is not necessarily external."
Riley has passed two big new-coach tests already. First, he quickly got the team on his side. This wasn't easy considering the rawness of Pelini's firing and the house cleaning that came after. Some players felt betrayed by the school's administration. Riley knew he would have to build trust. He couldn't simply walk in and command the players to believe in him, so he didn't. "I really realized we got the right guy when he came in," Cornhuskers senior offensive tackle Alex Lewis said. "The first thing he said was, 'Look, I'm not going to be here and demand respect. I'm here to earn your respect.' That opened up a lot of eyes for a lot of guys."
Second, Riley didn't fall into the trap many coaches do when they take over a new team. Some coaches believe so unwaveringly in their own system and their own genius that they try to ram that system down the throats of players who weren't recruited to run it. Riley, whose offense has never included zone-read concepts, didn't scrap one of the cornerstones of the offense Tim Beck ran last year. Instead, Riley and offensive coordinator Danny Langsdorf immersed themselves in the study of reading unblocked defenders, mesh points and run-pass packaged plays. Instead of trying to turn Nebraska junior quarterback Tommy Armstrong Jr. into the Sean Mannion of the Midwest, Riley and Langsdorf tried to wed the concepts that worked for them with the things they knew Armstrong did well.
Langsdorf, who spent 2014 as Eli Manning's quarterback coach with the New York Giants, brought the collaborative model back from the NFL. Yet one of the best resources for zone-read newbies Langsdorf and Riley has been Armstrong. Because while the coaches have studied the theory, Armstrong remembers how difficult it was to read an unblocked Randy Gregory at practice last year. "We've been there," Armstrong said. "We've actually done things like that and actually seen it on the field."
Riley has enjoyed tinkering with scheme, too. As he talked last week about packaged plays—where the quarterback decides post-snap whether to hand off or to throw—Riley sounded like a kid who just upgraded from a PlayStation 3 to a PlayStation 4. Instead of clinging to his old ways, Riley is embracing how the players he inherited can enhance his offense. "Coaching is not so much about a system and what you want to do," Riley said. "I think you have to have beliefs, and I know that we have concepts that we'll always teach. But you have to adapt to your people."
Eric Francis/Getty Images
How Riley adapts to Lincoln will depend on the win-loss column and how well he can stock the program with incoming talent. While Nebraska has become a far tougher recruiting job than it was in the era when Tom Osborne's teams mowed down opponents, it's still an easier recruiting job than Oregon State is. Riley has advocated a national focus, and he and his staff have emphasized to prospects that nearby Omaha is reachable by flights of less than three hours from most major cities. That may not sway a player who lives a two-hour drive from a Big 12 or SEC school, but it isn't that different than explaining how to get to Oregon State. Riley knows it will still be difficult to get players to pay for unofficial visits to Lincoln—most of which will require a flight—but he also knows that once he gets a recruit on campus on a fall Saturday, he has a far easier sell than he had in Corvallis.
Of course, the easiest way to sell a program and keep the fans happy is to win more than the last guy did. Unfortunately for Riley, he's the rare new coach who must win 10 or 11 games to beat the average seasons of his predecessor. With a nonconference schedule that includes BYU (Sept. 5) and Miami (Sept. 19) and a Big Ten schedule that includes a divisional crossover matchup against Michigan State (Nov. 7), that's asking a lot. But Riley understands what's expected.
"I know," he said, "what 92,000 people on Saturday afternoon will want."
Riley wants the same thing they do—only more. He may have a cuddly exterior, but he changed jobs because underneath that exterior he is built to seek out the greatest challenge with the greatest potential reward. That's why he left his bike in Corvallis and brought himself to Lincoln.
LINCOLN, Neb.—The yellow beach cruiser with the giant basket chained to a rack stationed outside Nebraska's Hawks Championship Center looked exactly like the sort of thing the caricature we've drawn of Mike Riley would ride to work. Yes, he did pedal to his previous job at Oregon State, but that had more to do with proximity than it did with a love of cycling. As Nebraska's head coach, Riley drives to the office.
"People think I'm a real bicycle guy. I'm a 10-minute cruiser guy," Riley said. "It's funny how people know the story, and they've got these great trails around Lincoln. But people go on 30-mile bike rides, and I say I'm going to have to train a little bit longer."
Riley had a nice little routine in Corvallis, Ore. Bike to work. Coach in the town where he grew up. Labor without the crushing weight of expectations many of his colleagues shouldered. All that fit neatly into the nicest-coach-in-college-football image Riley cultivated by actually being one of the nicest people in college football. There was more to that routine, though. Upset the occasional powerhouse. Scratch and claw to find and sign recruits capable of competing in the Pac-12. Lose to Oregon.
That last one had to get old. Knowing his program would likely never be better than the fourth choice—behind Oregon, Stanford and Washington—in the Pac-12 North among recruits had to grate on Riley as well. Because even though he's a nice football coach, he is still a football coach. He remains the coach's kid who grew up in Corvallis but moved to Tuscaloosa, Ala., to play for Bear Bryant. He remains the man who left Oregon State the first time to coach the San Diego Chargers. He may not act or talk like Urban Meyer or Nick Saban, but he ultimately wants the same things they do. Considered through that prism, Riley's move from Corvallis to Lincoln doesn't seem the least bit shocking. "I tell people, don't overdramatize this thing," he said. "It's a guy taking another job because he thinks it's exciting and new."
That key factor seems to have been comfort. Riley was extremely comfortable in Corvallis. He has the potential to be extremely uncomfortable in Lincoln if he posts records similar to the one the Beavers posted (5-7) in his final season at Oregon State. And while the average person might consider that a reason to stay on the coast, the kind of person who becomes a Power Five football coach has precisely opposite mindset. Comfort is unbearable. High-risk, high-reward states are preferable.
That's exactly what the Nebraska job is. On Dec. 1 the Cornhuskers fired Bo Pelini, who never won fewer than nine games in his seven seasons in Lincoln. He also never lost fewer than four. Pelini existed in that narrow space where a coach's personality actually matters. A coach who consistently wins titles will almost always remain employed. A coach who consistently posts losing seasons will almost always get fired. The coach who wins just enough and loses just enough? He is judged on the intangibles. Pelini was beloved by his players but not by Nebraska's administration. So, when in 2014 he again won the games he was supposed to win and lost the games he was supposed to lose, he became expendable. "We weren't good enough in the games that mattered," Nebraska athletic director Shawn Eichorst told reporters on the day he fired Pelini.
This move was met largely with fan approval even though nine to 10 wins every year is enough to keep a coach employed in most places. Of course, Nebraska has a fan base that believes Lincoln isn't most places. After going through seven years on a ride as flat as the land in the western part of the state, Nebraska fans wanted to feel something again. Another coach might bring valleys, but if he also brings peaks, that might make the valleys more tolerable.
Still, it should be noted that while Pelini compiled a 66-28 record at Nebraska between 2008 and '14, Riley went 46-42 over that same span at Oregon State. Those records are the inverse of how coaching change math usually works. This is either an indicator of disaster ahead or an acknowledgement of the difficulty of posting nine-win seasons in Corvallis. Riley's record in Lincoln will determine that answer.
Riley understands this completely. He also understands the hunger at a program that has a banner over its practice field commemorating 43 conference titles. The last one came in 1999, when most of his players had yet to start kindergarten.
"They want to get back where they're in that conversation about national championships," Riley said. "And they want to win the conference championship." Riley appreciates the passion. "The stadium has been renovated many times. But part of the inner wall over there in the front, over an arch in the doorway is the greatest saying in the world: 'Through these gates pass the greatest fans in college football.' The longer that I've been here, the more I know that they're right."
It's easy for an undefeated coach to say that. It isn't so easy when that coach has failed to fulfill expectations and heard about it from the faithful. Pelini blew up at Nebraska's fans in 2011 in a rant he didn't know was being recorded. When that recording was leaked in '13, it eroded even more support for Pelini. With Riley, the Cornhuskers aren't likely to have to deal with another coach dropping F-bombs with regard to the paying customers. But that doesn't mean the paying customers will be any happier with Riley than they were with Pelini, especially if Riley doesn't deliver a product worth celebrating.
That again raises the question: Why would Riley leave Oregon State to jump into this pressure cooker? The answer remains the same as above. He is a football coach. He is wired to prefer this. "First of all, it's better to be at a place where there are great expectations," Riley said. "What was neat about Oregon State is the expectations grew. When I went there in 1997, there were none. Nobody really cared."
At Nebraska, they care.
"Everybody says that puts pressure on you," Riley said. "But, gosh. I always say there's nobody that puts more pressure on coaches than coaches do. The hard part about this business is not necessarily external."
Riley has passed two big new-coach tests already. First, he quickly got the team on his side. This wasn't easy considering the rawness of Pelini's firing and the house cleaning that came after. Some players felt betrayed by the school's administration. Riley knew he would have to build trust. He couldn't simply walk in and command the players to believe in him, so he didn't. "I really realized we got the right guy when he came in," Cornhuskers senior offensive tackle Alex Lewis said. "The first thing he said was, 'Look, I'm not going to be here and demand respect. I'm here to earn your respect.' That opened up a lot of eyes for a lot of guys."
Second, Riley didn't fall into the trap many coaches do when they take over a new team. Some coaches believe so unwaveringly in their own system and their own genius that they try to ram that system down the throats of players who weren't recruited to run it. Riley, whose offense has never included zone-read concepts, didn't scrap one of the cornerstones of the offense Tim Beck ran last year. Instead, Riley and offensive coordinator Danny Langsdorf immersed themselves in the study of reading unblocked defenders, mesh points and run-pass packaged plays. Instead of trying to turn Nebraska junior quarterback Tommy Armstrong Jr. into the Sean Mannion of the Midwest, Riley and Langsdorf tried to wed the concepts that worked for them with the things they knew Armstrong did well.
Langsdorf, who spent 2014 as Eli Manning's quarterback coach with the New York Giants, brought the collaborative model back from the NFL. Yet one of the best resources for zone-read newbies Langsdorf and Riley has been Armstrong. Because while the coaches have studied the theory, Armstrong remembers how difficult it was to read an unblocked Randy Gregory at practice last year. "We've been there," Armstrong said. "We've actually done things like that and actually seen it on the field."
Riley has enjoyed tinkering with scheme, too. As he talked last week about packaged plays—where the quarterback decides post-snap whether to hand off or to throw—Riley sounded like a kid who just upgraded from a PlayStation 3 to a PlayStation 4. Instead of clinging to his old ways, Riley is embracing how the players he inherited can enhance his offense. "Coaching is not so much about a system and what you want to do," Riley said. "I think you have to have beliefs, and I know that we have concepts that we'll always teach. But you have to adapt to your people."
Eric Francis/Getty Images
How Riley adapts to Lincoln will depend on the win-loss column and how well he can stock the program with incoming talent. While Nebraska has become a far tougher recruiting job than it was in the era when Tom Osborne's teams mowed down opponents, it's still an easier recruiting job than Oregon State is. Riley has advocated a national focus, and he and his staff have emphasized to prospects that nearby Omaha is reachable by flights of less than three hours from most major cities. That may not sway a player who lives a two-hour drive from a Big 12 or SEC school, but it isn't that different than explaining how to get to Oregon State. Riley knows it will still be difficult to get players to pay for unofficial visits to Lincoln—most of which will require a flight—but he also knows that once he gets a recruit on campus on a fall Saturday, he has a far easier sell than he had in Corvallis.
Of course, the easiest way to sell a program and keep the fans happy is to win more than the last guy did. Unfortunately for Riley, he's the rare new coach who must win 10 or 11 games to beat the average seasons of his predecessor. With a nonconference schedule that includes BYU (Sept. 5) and Miami (Sept. 19) and a Big Ten schedule that includes a divisional crossover matchup against Michigan State (Nov. 7), that's asking a lot. But Riley understands what's expected.
"I know," he said, "what 92,000 people on Saturday afternoon will want."
Riley wants the same thing they do—only more. He may have a cuddly exterior, but he changed jobs because underneath that exterior he is built to seek out the greatest challenge with the greatest potential reward. That's why he left his bike in Corvallis and brought himself to Lincoln.
