When will Riley be let go?
- Thread starter husker2612
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Preaching to the choir. I've been saying that awhile. People want Riley fired, fine, I don't have the $$$ to do anything about it. But I don't care who the next guy is, 2 seasons plus 3 games later I'd bet a paycheck we will still not be very good. Fans better be prepared for that.
Agree with most. The biggest question the perspective AD candidates will have to answer, "After you fire Riley, how will you get the program turned around?"
Sorry I just posted this in another thread, but I think the answer has to do with finding an AD with excellent leadership abilities and character. To me, that will go a long way towards the success of the program.
There is too much optimism in this thread. The head coach will be gone Saturday night after the game (we lose again) and an interim will be named. The big money boosters are calling the shots, not the head brass of the University. They had to get rid of the AD first to let the HC go.
Whatever you think of Riley, love him or lose him (and every opinion in between), every potential recruit contacted by Nebraska from this day forward, so long as MR is HC, will question the coaching staff's stability. That's a cold hard truth.
No coach with any integrity can assure a prospect that they will be running the program if/when the recruit arrives on campus but Riley and his staff might as well tattoo "LAME DUCK" on their foreheads. College football at this level is big business. Forget the season record..they'll let him finish the season... but I don't care who the next AD is, even Mike Riley's mother would come in and clean house.
No coach with any integrity can assure a prospect that they will be running the program if/when the recruit arrives on campus but Riley and his staff might as well tattoo "LAME DUCK" on their foreheads. College football at this level is big business. Forget the season record..they'll let him finish the season... but I don't care who the next AD is, even Mike Riley's mother would come in and clean house.
Heh, as if we're not most desperately struggling right now. How can we lose with another HC? Worse than Clownahan or MR? Very highly doubtful.
Probably not, but voters emailing regents who are elected is another thing. So much easier than pen and paper.
Excellent question. If it happens after a loss tomorrow then you will know who is in charge of the athletic department.
This was Osborne's version of the story of one regent who told him that it was fortunate that Nebraska had won the bowl game in 1976:
Osborne cautions that he heard this from only that one regent and no one else, certainly not from then-athletic director Bob Devaney, who always was strongly behind his former assistant.
“It could have been a little bit of an offhand remark or it could have been something that was dead serious,” Osborne said. “It wasn’t like the president of the university or Bob Devaney called me in and we set a meeting and said this is what has to happen or you’re going to be fired. That didn’t happen. But I gathered that there was enough smoke out there that there probably was some heat.”
There were no message boards then, but losing still led to angry letters and a good deal of grumbling.
“You felt terrible when you lost,” Osborne said. “Losing was like dying, and particularly if it was the last game of the year, you had to live with it for the whole year. That was really hard. But you immediately tried to focus on the future and recruiting. I remember losing a bowl game here and there, where the next day I was in someone’s living room recruiting. So you never stopped.”
Whether or not the regent’s words after the game rang true, it was the sort of pressure that Osborne faced for 25 years.
“I never felt that I was more than one year away from being terminated here,” Osborne said. “I felt that if we had a losing season, that if we really had a bad year, that I could really easily be terminated. So I never felt secure at all.”
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Christ, you must be all knowing, Are you God??? Joking, but honestly, dudes got a point. We all love Coach Tom now but he’s right. With the struggles he had then and having trouble getting over the hump our fans now days would be calling for his head after that many years.
60-3 over the final five years gives TO God like status and makes people forgetful about a losing record to Switzer, losses to Warren Powers (who some wanted to succeed Devaney not Osborne), a 7 year bowl loss streak (many of which were embarrassing), that it took until 1981 to win an outright conference title, that people openly questioned if the game had passed him by as recently as 1990, etc, etc.
To some it is blasphemy to ponder. When I say survived, I don't just mean fired, I also mean walk away. He came close in 1978, the internet age could have pushed him over the edge. He was also offered other jobs during his time here.
The funny (strange not ha-ha) thing is that NU is no different than a lot of other programs when it comes to coaching expectations. Rich Rod was fired at Michigan after 3 seasons that saw year over year improvement. Speaking of Michigan, Brady Hoke was fired after one losing season.
Programs that shell out the money expect to not lose. NU is no different. I don't expect Riley to put it together and pull out a winning season even though it is possible. Another reset looks inevitable.
Programs that shell out the money expect to not lose. NU is no different. I don't expect Riley to put it together and pull out a winning season even though it is possible. Another reset looks inevitable.
I lived in my father's HUSKER-crazy household from 1970-1988...I NEVER heard 1 cross word about Dr. Tom Osborne.
People back then and now regardless of the internet board backlash (Tim Miles for example) knew that they had no control over who would be coaching NU football and basketball and that they had to accept what was decided by the AD and Regents.
As a kid, I was shocked when Devaney stepped down from coaching and was surprised by his choice of Osborne as the coach. I for one however never wanted Osborne fired from his coaching position and I didn't know anyone else who did either. Osborne never had one losing season as HC and the most games that were lost in a season were 3.
If he were coaching today and had that kind of record, there may be grumblings about losing to this team or that team but he would survive quite well on our internet board IMO. Pelini I believe would have survived as well with his annual 4 losses a year if he hadn't been such a doucebag to the University and the fans.
What we are dealing with today is NU playing bad football. If we won the games that we were supposed to win anyway, I think that the fans could be forgiving of that and hope that things would get fixed as the year went along. We however are looking at a losing season if our program doesn't get turned around quickly. Comparing this situation now to what Osborne dealt with during his career is disingenuous. He was never in jeopardy of having a losing season as HC at NU.
