Husker Fans Shouldn't Blame 2016's Collapse on Talent

The recruitniks were out in force in December and January, trying to pin the blame on Nebraska's 2-4 finish to the season on the overall incompetence of the previous staff. It's easy to do, because the results were painful and the people they point fingers at are long gone.  Bad coaches who did bad recruiting, leaving the program in such a sorry state, Mike Riley was a miracle worker getting this team to nine wins while having to rebuild the program from the ashes.

Unfortunately that's like an InfoWars sports report.  Totally #fakeNews.

Billy Devaney, who was hired by Mike Riley to help provide additional oversight and guidance on the football program said talent wasn't an issue, except against Ohio State.  Every other game, Nebraska should have been able to compete better.  Here's what Devaney told Steven M. Sipple of the Lincoln Journal-Star last week:

"Wisconsin, obviously, was a pretty balanced team, but it was a good matchup. The Iowa game, that was bullsh--. There was no way in the world that should have happened.

"Even Tennessee, yeah, they were athletic. But I thought there were other places that we should've competed better, where we matched up well. Ohio State was the only game where I thought we were in trouble, where the talent gap was noticeable."

Recruitniks don't want to hear it, but the words and actions of North Stadium mean so much more than your own conclusions. Two coordinators with long-standing ties to Mike Riley:  fired.  A clear message has been sent by Mike Riley:  Now that I'm here in Lincoln, what was "good enough" at Oregon State simply isn't "good enough" at Nebraska.

Think I'm making this up?  Tom Shatel of the Omaha World-Herald talked to Dan Van De Reit, Riley's assistant athletic director of football operations:

There’s been one major difference from OSU: the head coach. Riley’s dismissal of three coaches in two seasons, and his urgency in landing defensive coordinator Bob Diaco, is a side few saw at Oregon State.

For good reason, Van De Riet said.

“Coach Riley has always been one of the most competitive guys I know,” Van De Riet said. “With expectations come hard decisions. We were at a place for so long where a bowl game was fine.

“Those decisions are hard. I don’t know if at Oregon State if that was necessary. You win seven games, six, go to a bowl game, the fans are happy. The goal there was to get to a bowl game, because they hadn’t had one.

“I’ve been impressed with the way he’s not only been aware of the expectations but how he’s managed those expectations. He’s set the bar to what he feels it’s going to take to win.”

"I don't know if at Oregon State if that was necessary."  Read that quote again.  And again.

Maybe Mike Riley has been slow to truly accept it, but it's becoming clear that Riley recognizes that what he did at Oregon State (which wasn't really working anyway, if you ask people there) isn't going to work at Nebraska.

Want more evidence that Mike Riley isn't exactly sold on his staff? The assistants he kept got contract extensions, but several (Danny Langsdorf, Mike Cavanaugh, Reggie Davis and Keith Williams) didn't get raises.  Williams' situation was exacerbated by his August DUI; otherwise, he'd be deserving of a nice raise. The other three offensive assistants? If you really think that winning nine games last year was a masterful job of coaching (especially on offense), you'd think Riley would reward them with their new contracts.

Especially with the avalanche of cash that the Big Ten's new television deal will be bringing in.  Thanks to Nebraska's buy-in period to the Big Ten Network coming to completion, I believe the Huskers will see an increase of up to 150% in revenues, from about $22 million to over $50 million a season.  Nebraska seems to be planning to use the revenue bump judiciously.  Spending more money to bring in a highly regarded defensive coordinator like Mike Diaco? Reward Trent Bray and John Parella for their good work? Open the checkbook.

Spending more money on coaches who were underperforming at Oregon State?  The checkbook stays closed. Maybe Mike Riley isn't quite ready to press that eject button yet on underperforming coaches like offensive line assistant Mike Cavanaugh, but he's clearly not going all-in either.  Perhaps only to promote staff consistency; let's blow up the defense and do it right this time, but leave the offense alone for now.

Truth be told, I've been more concerned about the offense than the defense, but Riley may have no choice but to stay the course since there aren't any dual-threat quarterbacks (other than Zach Darlington) left in the program.  The whole notion that Nebraska football should jettison the migration towards single-threat pro-style quarterbacks with two freshmen and a mid-major transfer waiting anxiously in the wings certainly sounds blasphemous to those that anxiously awaited (and loudly herald) their arrival.  But I'm unconvinced that this is the right direction for Nebraska to aim offensively when you consider the evolution of modern college spread offenses combined with the lack of success Riley's offense found in recent years in Corvallis.  (Not to mention the lack of success of Tanner Lee at Tulane.)

Be careful what you wish for... you just might get it.

Staying Sane Online In the Age of Trump

In 1966, Robert F. Kennedy once quoted a Chinese curse saying

There is a Chinese curse which says “May he live in interesting times.” Like it or not, we live in interesting times.

It's unknown whether this was actually an ancient Chinese saying or if it was just something misinterpreted or just plain made up (#fakeNews!), but it's hard to argue that we're not living in "interesting times" right now.  And there's no more proof of it than looking at Facebook and Twitter.  The cesspool of partisan bickering gets deeper and deeper, and it's driving wedges between friends and families.  Relationships are suffering, if not downright being destroyed. We're becoming a more divided country each and every day.

It doesn't really matter who started it, or who's at fault. Maybe it makes YOU feel better, but someone is going to disagree, and it doesn't solve the problem.  That train long left the station, and everybody has their hands dirty to some degree.  Blaming others isn't going to fix the problem.

What we can do is cut down on the partisan vitriol and instead try to better understand the perspective of the other side. Don't unfriend people who you disagree with; instead, block the purveyors of the discord.  You know what I'm talking about:  it's those commentary sites that push all of the negativity and spread #fakeNews.

Last week, while I was busy shutting off all of the recruiting coverage on my Facebook and Twitter pages, I also took a whack at all of the partisan sites that kept popping up at the same time. It's super-easy to do, and days later, I'm amazed at how much cleaner and happier my Twitter and Facebook experience is.  I didn't unfriend or unfollow any people; the blocks purely shut down posts by "True Patriots" or "Uncaring Conservatives" or whatever.  How did I do this?

On Facebook, in the upper left of each post is a little arrow.  Click that, and you'll get a menu that allows you to Hide the source of these posts.

Note I didn't block or unfriend "Chris", I blocked Milo, an editor with Breitbart. Free speech purists would say that I'm censoring him, but that's not exactly true. I'm using my free choice to not listen to him, but I'm not preventing anybody else from reading him. He has a right to say what he thinks; I'm simply exercising my right to reject him unfiltered based on what he stands for.

In Twitter, it's even easier. When you come across someone who's HOTTAKES raise your blood pressure, just mute them by clicking on the "gear" icon and selecting "Mute".  The best part is that if anybody you follow decides to retweet the person you muted, you don't see it either.

Does this open me up to only seeing one side of the debate? Absolutely...but it's no worse than someone who only watches Fox News or MSNBC on TV. And I'm purposely not blocking legitimate news sources that have a bent that I disagree with; just the commentators who simply troll the public for a reaction.

Does it work? I can speak after a week of this that it absolutely does.  My "social media" experience is so much more pleasant than it's been in quite some time.  I'm still seeing pictures of kids and dogs; I'm still seeing Tasty videos and cool vacation pictures. I'm still getting a lot of news as well.

I'm just not seeing nearly the amount of crap that I was seeing...and I didn't have to take a Facebook or Twitter vacation to do it.

Or unfriend good people that I disagree with politically.