From almost-worst to almost-first: Mike Riley got a fresh start today when Nebraska whisked him from the misery of a 2-7 league record to replace Bo Pelini as coach of the 9-3 Huskers. Talk now centers on what OSU can do to rescue Beaver football (Scott Olmos-USA TODAY Sports photo).
The Oregon State athletic department takes in $65 million of annual revenue. Oregon’s is nearly twice that at $119 million. Money talks in college football. It maintains stadiums and hires support staff and coaches, outfits training rooms and the video resource center.
This morning Mike Riley left his long-time gig as Beaver head football coach to replace Bo Pelini at Nebraska.
It was a shocker. Lincoln is a big Corvallis, and the buzz at the Wal-Mart and the coffee shops today is all about how the Huskers replaced a 67-27 coach with a 61-year-old who went 5-6 this season, 29-33 since 2010.
He made Beaver football competitive by teaching patiently and scouring Texas and California for underrated players. When he went 5-6 in his second year in 1998, it was the best record at OSU in 32 years.
Riley made a bowl game 8 times in 14 seasons, and in one stretch from 2006-2009 his teams went 10-4, 9-4, 9-4 and 8-5. In the Scott Crichton/Quizz Rodgers years the Beavs were contenders in the PAC-12. They even beat USC a couple of times, and Riley brought in a series of tall, strong-armed quarterbacks and pesky-flea receivers that terrorized the top dogs of the conference. It seemed like James Newsome played for six years.
Things turned ugly this season though. There were grumblings as OSU went 2-7 in conference, mired in misery. Only a win over then-#6 Arizona State brightened a dismal campaign. Fans paddled out of the stadium by halftime last weekend as the Beavs absorbed a seventh straight beatdown by the Ducks. Riley looked worn, a beaten, tired man who seemed to have lost his optimism and his love of the game.
It would have been less surprising if he’d announced his retirement from coaching after that debacle. Instead he gets a fresh start at a school that will welcome his anti-Pelini demeanor and hip-hip-hooray coaching style. Riley rarely utters anything more inflammatory than “Jiminy Christmas.” Pelini melted a few microphones over the last couple of years with volcanic tirades, even letting loose with a few f#%k yous directed at the remarkably loyal and fanatical Nebraska fanbase.
HIs offensive style is a great fit in the Big Ten, and he’ll have a wider recruiting base and a much bigger budget. Nebraska’s athletic office takes in $87 million, and they paid Pelini $3 million a season. Riley made half that in Corvallis.
For the Beavers, this is a 40-foot cedar smashing the center of the dam. Think about the coaches that have been hired in the conference over the last few years. Innovators. Program changers. 100-win guys who’d led Top 10 programs. Leach, Petersen, Graham, Rodriguez and Mora have raised the water level in the PAC-12. Dykes has already made California more competitive. David Shaw just built on everything Jim Harbaugh accomplished at Stanford.
Even if Riley had stayed, the Beavers were in serious danger of being left way behind in the PAC-12. The team hasn’t been competitive since 2009, and twice in recent years they’ve lost to FCS schools at home, Eastern Washington and Sacramento State.
This is a pivotal hire for The Little School That Could, and the fans of The Orange and Black have grown bristly in Oregon’s shadow. Athletic Director Bob DeCarolis has to reunite the fanbase with an imaginative, carefully-considered coaching choice, or he could plunge OSU football into another era as grim as the Jerry Pettibone/Joe Avezzano/Dave Kragthorpe years.
DeCarolis has to decide between a dramatic splash hire like Ed Orgeron or (gulp!) Dennis Erickson, or try to lure an up-and-coming coach like Fresno State’s Tim Ruyter to come to the Willamette Valley. He could pursue a rising assistant like Pat Narduzzi of Michigan State, or try to pluck Scott Frost from the Ducks. The budget is limited, unless a sugar daddy emerges from the penurious ranks of the OSU alumni.
His most logical and unifying choice would be former Oregon State quarterback Jonathan Smith, now offensive coordinator for Petersen at Washington, formerly at Boise State. Smith is a good football mind and a hard worker, an undersized Beaver quarterback who got by on film study and courage in the pocket.
He understands the OSU culture and community. He’s the most likely to make Corvallis a long-term career choice rather than a stepping stone to a bigger, better deal. It would inspire some cautious optimism among fans, who associate Smith with the rise to respectability. Smith could even lure Erickson from Utah as a staff member, maybe assistant head coach or offensive coordinator. They’d comb the JUCOs for some nasty linebackers and fast, NFL-bound wideouts. They’d throw the football off play-action, the hallmark of the Beaver tradition.
Orgeron or DeRuyter would be stop-gaps. Narduzzi will have plenty of offers at all levels of football much closer to home. Smith is the right guy for OSU, and he could even make the rivalry interesting again.