Welcome back!
How do you feel about Mike Riley?
Love him. He's undefeated.
He reminds me of Tom Osborne a lot, but actually even more personable.
He hasn't done as much with less as say, a Bill Snyder, but Bill Snyder also didn't have Oregon as his in-state competition.
The staff he brought is experienced and quite professional. The recruiting organization and effort is vastly improved. The coaching seems to be vastly improved too. We went from having coaches who were previously GAs or golf-instructors to having guys that were NFL DCs, or NFL assistants, and have decades of experience.
I think player management will be better too, no more favoritism and weirdness.
Pelini ran a shoddy organization. Our talent has fallen off since he arrived. Riley's first class being Top 30 despite transition is great, and I like this next one a lot.
The real question is, if Riley has all the bells and whistles, can he actually win championships. I think everyone is rooting for him to do it, and he seems energized and excited to give it a shot. It'd be a hell of a story.
Gonna be hard to judge him on this year though, Armstrong isn't the best, Abdullah is gone, the OL should improve thanks to the lack of nepotism on it this year (Pelini's nephew and our TE coach's son were both starting and both awful, the backup line bulldozed people when in). WR looks ok, and TE should be better.
Defense was a total mess under Pelini (this is what helped get him fired). We may start two true freshman at LB this year. Some nice young talent there. The DL doesn't have Randy Gregory but might be just as good. DB looks pretty solid esp on the corners, and I have confidence in safety.
Pierson-El makes our return units some of the most dangerous in the country, and should feast on the fly sweep that Riley likes to run.
This season comes down to a few things for Nebraska:
1. How well Riley/Langsdorf adapt their offense to the pieces Nebraska has, and how well Armstrong comes on.
2. How much the Oline improves and in combination with our new RBs if they can be productive.
3. Linebacker, and if that spot can be productive, if not, the defense will have a rough year.
Our schedule doesn't do us favors. BYU in the opener (testing our opener winning streak and @Miami a few weeks later. If Nebraska can get through those two in the non-conference, the next big bump is Wisconsin and it's in Lincoln. Minnesota is a little scary, but I think if we're 5-0 going into Wisconsin, we'll be in good shape.
I could see 7-5/8-4... I could see 10-2. Either way I won't read into Riley's record too much until Year 3 or so
Riley does *seem* older though.